


Pieces

by Castiel_For_King



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel aint human and it shows, Coda, Destiel - Freeform, Episode: s11e10 The Devil in the Details, First Kiss, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Gentle Dean, Happy Ending, Hella fuckin' spoilers inside, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Trust, Love Confessions, Lucifer is dead, Mental Health Issues, Mentally unstable Castiel, Mentions of hell, Scared Castiel, Team Free Will, Temporary Amnesia, Trust has to be earned, Wingfic, Wings, angel habits, mentions of torture, the darkness is gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:27:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5815957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castiel_For_King/pseuds/Castiel_For_King
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel switched places with the Devil to give the world one last chance.  Almost a year after taking his place in the cage, Sam and Dean finally manage to get him out.  Unfortunately, some pieces got left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Agony curled around him like a snake and crawled down his throat like a vine creeping into a corpse. He couldn't move, couldn't fight; could only exist and try to endure.

But it had been years – decades – he was sure. He'd lost count, had had to pull in every ounce of his focus just to keep his mind from splintering apart. A creature of light and pureness did not belong in a place like Hell; with all its festering corruption and putrid, rancid darkness, an angel – a mere seraph – stood little chance of escaping intact – if they stood any chance of escaping at all.

He could feel the evilness of Hell spreading through him like a disease, burrowing into his grace like larva into rotten meat and his entire being had been screaming for decades, with all the noise and ferocity of a collapsing star. Except, unlike a star, for _him_ there was no end in sight.

 

* * *

 

He didn't know when the endless torment had shifted into something more bearable, nor was there any definitive point where he'd become aware of it – just that both were fact.

He drifted for minutes or millennia, it was hard to tell.

Was it just an illusion, he wondered, this sudden lack of searing, all-consuming pain?  Or was it simply an inability to keep track of it any more? He'd started fracturing around the edges a long time ago, that much he knew; had started tearing away pieces of himself in some primal instinct to try and avoid the vileness seeping into him. Like a trapped animal chewing it's own leg off to get free.

He might have thought it worked, that he _had_ managed to chew himself free, but the pain hadn't vanished, not completely. It had merely shifted, still enough of a presence to keep hope at bay.

With a defeated but ingrained sense of morbid curiosity, he pulled together the shattered remains of his consciousness and examined just _how_ this pain was different. Because, down here, different was worth looking at. Things seldom changed where he was.

This new torment was vivid, but veiled, like the echo of a sharp sound. The blackness of Hell that had been burrowing into him now felt like phantoms retracing their steps. Tentatively, he allowed his mind to gather itself from all the safe places he'd scattered it, cautious, _wary_ of his sudden ability to do so. For so long those jagged pieces of himself had rattled and shook with endless pain, constantly trembling like pebbles in an earthquake; he couldn't have pulled himself together even if he'd wanted to.

Now, it was different. He no longer felt like he was shaking apart and he wondered, with fear clawing at his throat like a demon seeking to escape, if he focused enough, would he be able to feel the ground, solid and still, under his feet?

He nearly choked on the terror the thought caused him and, for a moment he despaired. Ice expanded in his throat and he tried to figure out _why_. It wasn't that escape scared him – he'd longed for everything to just end for decades. No, it was the possibility that he might be _wrong_ – that he might start to _hope_ only to be crushed – that made him want to retch.

Just a new kind of torment, he realized, letting the desire of...whatever it was he had wanted drift away again. It was already gone.

He let the pieces of himself go once more, let them float away like deadwood in water, back to where they had a hope of surviving a little longer – if they had any hope of surviving at all.

This was enough, he told what was left of himself. This echo of pain was so much better than what it _had_ been and he told himself to be grateful because it probably wouldn't last forever. So he let himself drift again.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, even the echoes began to fade and he felt like he was drowning. Or like he'd been moving at the speed of light and then suddenly stopped. Or both.

There seemed to be some intangible force still whirring around him, like the noise and the agony of Hell was still trying to tear at him but he was just out of reach – suspended over a black, gaping maw of horrors that were straining to reach him.

In their writhing, slimy limbs he could see specks of bright light and realized that not all the pieces he'd cut away had stayed safe.

He watched them flicker, as if crying for help.

He would not go back for them, not now that he could.

 

* * *

 

For a very long time after that, it was quiet. Maddeningly so, he thought. He couldn't move or speak or remember how to do either of those things. He could see nothing but didn't know where his eyes should be, or how to use them, or if they were even still there.

He thought he might be breathing, thought he might be able to feel a soft _thump thump thump_ near the centre of him, but that was it. For a long time, that was it.

Until he thought he might be aware of other things. Like the soft, rumbling sounds rolling over his senses, telling him that _yes, you have ears_. Ears that work, he realized with surprise. He had nerve endings too, could feel warmth radiating over them and carrying the information to his brain.  And, If he had a brain, then he had a head, he reasoned. And he was sure he was breathing now, which meant he had lungs and a torso too.

He felt like he was coming back to life, like power being restored to a city; whole chunks of him flickering back online one block at a time.

That soft rumbling sound returned and he tried to recall if it had left or if he'd just stopped being aware of it for a time. It was...nice, he thought. Of course, anything other than what he'd become used was nice at this point.

Down close to one of his hands, his nerve endings flared in warning – something was touching him – and he flinched away. Or he tried to; his newly discovered body didn't seem capable of cooperating beyond a small twitch of his fingers.

The touch returned almost at once, more firm and terrifyingly tangible in a sea of the _in_ tangible and unfamiliar sensations in which he was still adrift.

He tried to move again, and this time he was more successful. He jerked his whole arm free of what was likely bloody claws or knives or hooks and ended up twisting his torso with the strength of the movement.

For a breath of a moment he'd recaptured his freedom.

Until there was suddenly hands everywhere, grabbing at him, trying to pull his body down and put his limbs straight. He realized then that he was laying on something, could feel it's solid presence under his back and legs and, with a gut wrenching ferocity, memories of a table – a _rack_ – covered in gore and entrails and bits of souls ripped through his mind.

He found his vocal chords and screamed.

 

* * *

 

The pain never came – not like he remembered it. It was the echoes again, crawling over his skin like a thousand baby spiders; not enough to drive him mad but just enough so that he could not think of anything else. He twitched when their little razor sharp feet danced over a particularly sensitive area and tried to map them out, tried to predict which spots hurt more, but they kept moving, never letting him rest.

He'd recently remembered that he did, in fact, have eyes, but had yet to remember how to open them.

The hands had finally left him alone, at least; let him curl into a ball on whatever cold, hard surface he was on now. He'd forgotten, after all those years of being distracted by fiery agony, how _cold_ Hell really was.

He shivered.

The soft rumbling sound came and went and more time passed.

Once, when the strangely comforting noise had gone on longer than usual, he felt the brush of something soft over the nerves in his bare feet and he pulled his knees closer to his chest, trying to get away.  The soft thing followed and he flinched, but it didn't hurt, it felt _warm_ , and it soothed the ice biting at his toes. The rumbling continued, a constant vibration between his ears – he wished he could remember how to translate the sound into something meaningful.

That soft, warm _something_ moved up his legs slow, slow, slow and as gentle as rising sunlight over frosted grass.

What a thought that was – sunlight, _real_ sunlight on his skin, warming him up, thawing his hell-frozen atoms. As if spurred by the wish itself, the warmth crept higher over his hips, tingled up his ribs and curled around his shoulders with a weight that felt so achingly familiar he thought he might weep.

 _Wings_ , he remembered. He was supposed to have _wings_.

He followed the feeling of his own skin down over his back, tried shifting the muscles there. He might have felt something pull, somewhere far, far away that he could not reach – but he might have felt nothing at all. He couldn't be sure. Maybe, if he could _see_ , he could look over his shoulder...

He tugged at his eyelids, but they wouldn't budge. No matter, he had all the time in the world to remember how to move them.

He tried again, engaged the muscle this time, and was rewarded with a blurry glimpse of something that was not hell-fire or blood – which was infinitely encouraging. He wanted to try again, but that warm, soothing weight was making him heavy and sluggish. He remembered, somewhere in one of the fragments that had yet to be knit back into the rest of him, the feeling of security and comfort of wrapping himself in his wings.

For the first time he could remember, he felt _safe_. There was no pain and no cold and he drifted gratefully.

 

* * *

 

He wished he could remember how to feel the passage of time, though he didn't know _why_ he wished for that, only that he did. What did time matter to him? Why should he want to count it's passing?

It was quiet now – the soft rumbling had been gone when he'd eventually managed to pull his drifting pieces close together again – and he opened his eyes with ease this time.

Darkness stared back and he slammed them closed again, curling into a tighter ball under the warmth and weight still around him.

But nothing came for him; nothing shrieked from within the darkness; nothing tried to reach in and burrow down into his mangled grace like some hellish tick. So, slowly, he let his muscles loosen, and cracked his eyes open again.

There was light this time, incredibly dim and soft like a single candle in the middle of a cave, but he squinted against it's glare all the same, his attention catching on it immediately, unable to look anywhere else. The soft rumbling returned and the light winked out for a second when something passed in front of it.

Terror squeezed itself into his throat and he shrunk back against a wall he suddenly realized was behind him, fingers curling against the floor. His eyes snapped this way and that, trying to see into the dark surrounding the meagre light source. But he saw nothing. No movement at all, which meant there could be absolutely nothing or there could be hundreds of _somethings_ waiting to rip him apart. Again.

He panicked, starting to push away all his pieces, send them drifting far away into the safety of distance, and felt little bits of himself shutting down all over again. The warmth and weight around him vanished – he was unable to feel it any more when the piece that remembered how was sent away. A second later, another piece went and he stopped seeing, though his eyes stayed open.

But then the now familiar rumbling stopped him with it's sudden reappearance. It was different this time, the vibrations high and close together and...urgent. He could read urgency within the sounds and it made him pause, made him start to pull back a few chunks of grace just so he might be able to figure out this sudden oddity.

He let the sounds shiver down into his ears, opened his mind to finding a pattern within the noise, and listened.

It continued, in short intervals and then longer pitches and falls that all rolled together into something that made no sense at all beyond the fact that some pitches kept repeating themselves. The longer he listened, the more a pattern began to emerge and he scrambled to pull all his pieces back together.

This meant something – something important, he told himself. It _had_ to and he needed every bit of himself that was left to figure it out because this had never happened before and that had to mean something. It _had_ to.

He was mostly back together – or as together as he could be with a good portion of him stuck in the claws of hell-beasts – when the pattern of vibrations against his ear drums suddenly took on a new meaning.

 _Words_ , his memory told him. Something was trying to communicate with him and, with an anxious jolt in his chest, he searched for the first language he could remember and asked the question that had been plaguing him most.

“ _Darsar_?” he asked, feeling the sting of the word in his throat. The sounds rolled off his tongue like lead beads but the fact that he could make sounds at all was something remarkable.

The rumbling had stopped dead but before he could worry about what that meant, it returned just as quickly, even more urgent then before. The vibrations – the _words_ , he reminded himself – were so close together and coming so fast that they almost dissolved into an indistinguishable mess, but he assumed that might just mean this _thing_ didn't understand what he'd asked.

He dug around for another language, anything, and came up with, “ _Ubi_?”

Silence for a split second and then more nonsensical gibberish.  For a few long seconds he listened, tried to remember if the sounds matched anything he could remember. He tried again.

“ _Var_?”

A sound that could only be described as _frustrated_ was all he got in answer. So he blinked a few times until he could see again, refused to give up now that he was so close to...to something that was not what he came from.

There was still just the one light source across the room – and he was most definitely in a room, he could just make out four walls, a floor and a ceiling – but it did not seem to glare as much now and, in the dim glow it cast, he could see the shape of something with arms and legs and a head with glinting eyes – eyes that were staring right into his.

He shied away, shrunk back against the wall, waited for it to lash out at him.

Instead, this living breathing _thing_ actually moved away, rocked back to sit on the floor just out of arms reach, and he could breathe again.

It spoke again, it's mouth forming around the words, and he let his eyes fall from it's, watched the lips move and the tongue curl just behind them and tried remember the pattern of vibrations this time.

He recognized one of the words, and it snagged in his brain. It was the one he was looking for and he quickly repeated it, trying to imitate the sound of it as best he could.

“ _Where_?” he finally asked in a language this creature would understand.

The effect was instant and several things pulled at the creature's face, moving it in all sorts of interesting ways. He could see it happening, but failed to understand what it meant, so he waited, fingers twitching and muscles still coiled tight in case the need arose to move quickly.

 _Could_ he move, though? He hadn't tried yet, but he'd managed to remember how to see and how to hear words and how to say them back; surely he could move as well if he put his mind to it.

“ _Where_?” he repeated when he realized he hadn't gotten an answer, or at least not one he understood. He felt his eyes stinging and blinked. “ _Where_?”

He recognized a few words, they filtered through the rest and settled in the back of his mind, waiting for more to fill in the blanks and make sense of the answer he was being given.

“...back...after...it's over....bunker...home... _home_...”

Each word he recognized made sense on its own but he couldn't string them together and he made a frustrated noise that meant and accomplished nothing.

“...understand...Cas...”

He blinked, froze against the floor and shifted under the weight of warmth still wrapped tight around him.

That word was familiar and foreign all at once, it hit against the edges of his mind and scattered, pieces of it sticking to the inside of his head and burrowing down like seeds into the earth, waiting.

He frowned, letting the word roll off his tongue in the hopes he might understand it better. “ _Cas..._ ”

He watched the creature's face, watched it smooth over, watched it's body go tight with energy. It twitched like it might lunge for him and he flinched in response, but then the energy was bleeding out again. It looked like a conscious decision and it seeped out through the cracks and fissures in it's skin like smoke.

Off to one side of the room there was movement and he forgot all about the word he was trying to hang on to, shifting his gaze to track the new thing in the room.  It was _huge_ and for a moment he couldn't breathe, tried to rally his limbs into doing something about getting away. But then that curious creature in front of him threw up his hand and halted the newcomer, barked something that made it freeze before turning back to stare at him.

“Cas,” said the creature again, it's voice low and rumbling. “...name...you're name...Castiel.”

 _Castiel_.

Something shuddered loose inside him and those little seeds in his head grew roots that curled gently down into the heart of him.

That was his _name_. Castiel. That was _him_.

“ _My name,_ ” he breathed, pulling all his pieces in close. The budding seeds send out silky tendrils, sinking into all the bits of grace he'd torn away and starting to knit them back together.

“ _My name._ ” He closed his eyes against an onslaught of memories.

Languages and wars and siblings and flying and _humans_ and all the tiny little bits in between all those things crashed into him all at once, with all the force of two galaxies colliding and he gasped, folding in on himself, breathing ragged and writhing under the hundreds of millions of years of existence trying to cram itself back into his head.

It happened hard and fast and all at once, ripping a ragged cry from his throat that was drowned out by the ear-splitting _noise_ of everything he could remember.

Eventually the roar between his ears calmed and there was a mess of debris left over, strewn about like the leftovers after a tornado. He started sifting sluggishly through the mess, trying, at least, to find the memory of where he was _now_. Not in Hell, he knew that much at least, and it was only a few seconds before he found it, the words rushing up to meet him.

“Home... _home_...” he mumbled to himself.  What did that even mean to him?

The word tasted like copper on his tongue.

“Yeah, Cas,” the creature across from him breathed, sounding relieved.

One of his pieces must have remembered how to do that - read emotion in voices. He opened his eyes, found green ones staring back, and it triggered a few other memories.

“Human,” he muttered, turning over each new piece of this man sitting in front of him as they came to him. “Righteous man. Dean Winchester.”

Dean's green eyes started to look a little glossy and the man nodded, his lips twitching. “Yeah, Cas, that's me,” he choked.

There was another name tied to that one and Castiel said it when it floated up from the back of his mind.

“Sam...?”

The huge presence, which had been hovering by the door all this time, moved slowly out of the shadows. Sam took careful steps behind Dean and then crouched down beside him, his soft brown eyes and concerned expression echoing as something familiar in Castiel's memory.

“Right here, Cas.”

 _Brothers_ , he memory supplied.

He frowned at them, feeling something uncomfortable curl tight around his chest when he realized he _knew_ these men – knew their names, knew that they were brothers, knew that he _knew_ them – but that was it. There was nothing else there save for the vague shape of something he'd only just forgotten. He tried to dig it out, but it was buried too deep.

He felt neither threatened by them or safe around them and it left Castiel shifting uneasily, his gaze moving from one to the other, wondering why they were here with him; wondering how he'd ended up in a room that likely belonged to them.

“Hey, it's ok,” Sam told him, his voice as soft and careful as the dim light in the room. “You're safe here, Cas.”

 _An unlikely thing_ , Castiel told himself firmly. _Do not fall into the trap of false promises_. The memory of eternal agony was still fresh and raw around the edges of his mind.

“Why don't we get off the floor, huh?” Sam suggested and Castiel made himself focus. Dean was quiet, eyes downcast and swimming. “You'd be more comfortable on the bed.”

None of them moved for a few long seconds, until the brothers shared a look and Sam turned back to him, tongue darting out to lick his lips before he gently asked.

“Cas, do you understand what I'm saying?”

“ _Noib, olani om_ ,” he replied, feeling one of his pieces try to drift away again, tugging at the delicate threads tying it to him.

“You gotta use English, buddy,” Dean told him quietly, his voice was tight, like he was in pain. “We don't understand Enochian.”

He wanted to tell them that Enochian was so much easier. Those syllables rolled off his tongue more comfortably than any other language, but he found the same words in English and said it again anyway, uncaring that his native tongue dug heavily into the pronunciation.

“Yes, I understand.” At least he thought he did, maybe he didn't.

“Ok, well,” Sam took a deep breath, both looking and sounding very tired, “You've been on the floor all day, Cas, you must be uncomfortable. Why don't you get back onto the bed?”

He wasn't uncomfortable, but he wasn't comfortable either. More importantly, the nice, _warm_ weight was still surrounding him and he didn't want to get out from under it. He pulled his knees closer to his chest with the thought, curling his fingers into the soft part around his shoulders and tugging it closer.

“You can bring the blanket with you,” Sam told him with a little smile.

He eyed the bed. Everything suddenly felt very fragile and he wondered if he moved, would this – the room, the brothers, the warm blanket – all dissolve away into the nothingness he'd been floating in for so long? Or worse, would he find himself in Hell's clutches again, like waking from a delusional dreamland?

“It's alright, Cas, let us help you,” Sam said right before he reached for him.

Fear stole his breath instantly and made him try to back away, but the solid wall at his back stopped him and icy terror flash froze his insides when he realized he _couldn't_ get away. He was trapped.

He scrambled back, out from under the heavy blanket, pushing himself into the wall, and both Sam and Dean stood and backed away immediately, their hands in the air, until they were clear on the other side of the room. But it didn't help the tightness in Castiel's throat nor the did it ease the sudden difficulty he found in breathing.

There was coldness against his skin now, seeping into his blood like it had never left and he started shaking – couldn't stop. His legs ached where he was half crouched against the wall, trying to control the panic spiking through him like a dirty lance.

“Cas, remember where you are,” Dean ordered firmly from the other side of the room. “You're in the bunker, ok? You're _home_. You're _safe_.”

Hellish, gurgling screams eclipsed Dean's words and a noise of despair escaped Castiel's throat, terror ripping through the new and delicate threads holding him all together.

He'd known this was too good to be true. He'd told himself not to let the hope in but it had crept through anyway. This was just some new kind of torture, dangling freedom in front of him only to pull it back when he finally reached for it.

He slumped to the floor while the screams grew louder between his ears and the phantom echoes of agony turned solid and slid their hooks into him, getting ready to pull him back down.

“ _Cas_!”

He didn't have room in him for more fear, he was full to the brim with it, shaking so hard that he could hear his teeth rattling. When Dean came towards him, his face twisting into something foul and demonic, Castiel could only cover his face with trembling hands and let a sob wrack his body.

“ _No_ ,” he moaned, begged, when he felt large hands on him again, holding him down when he tried to struggled free. He knew there was no point, knew this was not something he could escape, but some primitive part of his brain was refusing to let him succumb to it without a fight. It made him _try_ and it was pathetic and hateful. “Please,” he whispered brokenly, “ _Nidali crvscanse_...no more...no more...”

Tears carved cold tracks down his face and hopelessness swelled dark and hungry, carving out a fresh hole in his chest.

What had he done to deserve this? What unforgivable _thing_ had earned him this kind of punishment?

From out of the depths of an ancient memory, words floated out of his mouth with desperation rooted deep down in his grace itself.

“ _Veh-un ollog oiad niis olani nenni oe,_ ” he breathed with all the conviction he could muster. The black thing in his chest kept shredding his insides and the hands holding him down didn't relent, so he submitted to them, went limp, and let his unseeing eyes stare blankly.

He didn't know who he might be talking to or if they were listening, but something ingrained deep in his consciousness made him say it, over and over.

“ _Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...Veh-un ollog oiad niis olani nenni oe... Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...Veh-un ollog oiad niis olani nenni oe...”_

No longer serving the purpose of holding him down, since he wasn't struggling, the hands retreated and were replaced with strong arms wrapping all around him, holding him against something solid and soft and warm. There was a heartbeat against his ear and gentle fingers in his hair and Castiel told himself not to listen to any of it.

“ _Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”_

“Cas, _stop_ ,” Dean moaned into his hair, his breath hot and his words trembling. “ _Please_ , stop.”

“ _Veh-un ollog oiad niis olani nenni oe.”_

“You did _nothing_ wrong,” Dean lied, “You saved the god damn _world_.”

“ _Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned._ ”

A quiet, broken sob and arms tightening around him was the only answer to his prayer for forgiveness.

“ _Veh-un ollog oiad niis olani nenni oe._ ”

Through the screams in his head and the looming promise of torment rising up behind him like a hungry demon, Castiel felt to smallest pinprick of pain in his shoulder.

“ _Forgive me, Father_...” the edges of his vision swam and it was suddenly impossible to keep his eyes open. So he let them fall closed. “... _for I have...sinned._ ”

Silence rang in answer to his plea; Castiel let the darkness take him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dean held Cas against him long after the tranquilizer had done it's job. The angel was a dead weight in his arms, leaning heavy against his chest, and he knew there was no comfort he could lend to an unconscious mind. But he couldn't let go, his arms wouldn't loosen, and he didn't have it in him to care if that was overstepping some bounds because every ounce of self control he had left was being used to keep from breaking down completely.

Something deep inside him was trembling like a dam ready to burst and Dean let some of the pressure shudder out in a few careful breaths, uncaring of Sam watching him.

A few moments later, when he was no longer in immediate danger of coming unhinged, Dean lifted his head from where he'd had his nose buried in Castiel's hair, and opened his eyes.

“Let's get him back on the bed,” was all Sam said. He stood and set the empty syringe of etorphine on the night stand and Dean's red-rimmed eyes lingered on it, hating that they'd had to use it at all. Jody had gotten it for them, in the off chance they ended up needing it. She'd told them it was a sedative zoo caretakers frequently used to knock out the elephants, so it should be enough to put an angel under.

With Sam's help, they got Cas back on to the bed and Dean carefully and meticulously covered him with the heated blanket, plugging it into the outlet behind the bed, then smoothing it down and tucking it in tight around Cas' body.

He was out cold, not so much as twitching despite all the movement.

The blanket had been Sam's idea and, as it turned out, a really good one at that. They'd spent months reading up on angels, anything they could get their hands on, and Dean now understood Cas better than he ever had. Better than he'd ever bothered to, he corrected himself bitterly.

But all his new-found knowledge was not as comforting as he'd hoped, especially now that it looked like he might have learned it all too late.

Sam got his attention with a heavy hand on his shoulder and Dean snapped out of his revere, grabbed the empty syringe off the night stand and followed his brother out of the room. He pulled the door closed behind him as quietly as he could – even though he knew Cas wouldn't have woken for anything short of an atomic bomb going off outside – and slipped the padlock, scored with Enochian sigils, into the chains across the door with hands so stiff and heavy they felt like they'd been cut open and filled with sand.

When they walked through the library on their way to the kitchen, it was, of course, in the same state they'd left it in; an absolute mess.  Open books covered every inch of both long tables, stacks of closed ones they had yet to go through jutting out from within the swamp of books like the decaying pillars or some long forgotten stronghold.

The two of them stood around the coffee maker while it brewed a fresh pot, staring listlessly, lost in their own dark thoughts.

“The blanket was a good idea,” Dean eventually said aloud, partly because he felt like it was too quiet and the echo of Castiel deliriously begging forgiveness from a father that had long since abandoned him was too loud in his head.

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, “At least we found something that he finds comforting.”

Sam had tracked down a dusty, old, crumbling book from a seller visiting the States from Russia two months into their quest to figure out why Cas wasn't waking up – because the idea that he just _wouldn't_ wasn't an option – and it had been a proverbial gold mine, if your kind of treasure was obscure knowledge about angels. It was the only book of it's kind, the man had assured them in a thick accent and a thicker hand clutched around the wad of bills the brothers had handed him.

The text had started with the standard fare: how to kill them, how to trap them, how to summon them. But the reason they'd bought it was because of the few chapters at the back devoted to angelic behaviours the author had observed over his lifetime of interacting with and studying them.

Sam had called dibs on the first read through and had no sooner turned the first page than he had thought up the idea of the weighted, electric blanket for if – _when_ – Cas woke up; said it might be close to the comfort of a distressed angel wrapping itself in it's own wings.

Dean had gone to every Walmart in Kansas until he found one that had them in stock and he'd bought all three. Just in case.

He watched the coffee drip into the pot, steam curling up the front of the cupboards, as he thought about how far they had come and how far they had yet to go.

A hundred years or so had passed in Hell since Castiel had switched places with the Devil.

Dean's joints creaked and his bones ached when he shifted to lean more of his weight into the counter and he took a moment to recount the timeline of events just to prove to himself that he hadn't aged another forty years like it felt.

Lucifer had defeated the Darkness eight months ago. Sam and Dean had defeated Lucifer six months ago and, three months ago, they'd busted Cas out of Hell. He'd been catatonic when they pulled him from the cage and unconscious when they got topside again. He hadn't so much as twitched after they laid him out on Dean's bed – memory foam, more comfortable is what he'd told Sam – until a week and a half ago, when Dean had been sitting by his bed for hours, reading aloud from a book in the hopes that the sound of his voice might help Castiel find his way back to them. Sam had just come in to try and convince him to eat something and Dean had consented; set his book down and briefly squeezed Cas' hand.

Then nearly fell out of his chair when the angel's fingers twitched under his.

Things had gone down hill after that.

Castiel had flinched away from his touch so hard that he nearly rolled off the bed and both his and Sam's initial reflex had been to grab him, keep him from falling to the floor. Their hands had no sooner touched him than Castiel was screaming with a primal, gut wrenching terror. He flung himself off the bed and scrambled away until his back hit the wall, where he'd curled into a terrorized, trembling ball and didn't move and it had all happened so fast, the brothers had been left standing in shock. Months without so much as a flutter of eyelids and then...

For hours he'd stayed like that, curled up on the floor with tension running through him like an electric current and Dean had tried his best to snap him out of it. Had kept reading, low and soft, hoping it might work again. It hadn't and Dean had ended up just sitting there silently, on the floor with his back to his bed, watching Cas and wondering what he was thinking; wondering if he thought he was still in Hell. It was likely, given the small whimpers and fearful hitches that sometimes broke up his fast, shallow breathing.

Sam had thought to bring the weighted electric blanket to him after a while and Dean had had to lay it over Cas in increments, pausing when he flinched or tried to move away, spooked when too much of it touched him all at once. It was heartbreaking and Dean's hands had shaken and his arms had ached with the effort of holding the heavy blanket up until Cas had calmed enough to lower it a few more inches. Dean had talked him through it, feeling sick with the reality that Cas was so far gone that Dean had to whisper soft words and move so slowly just to get a blanket over him.

But it had been worth it, once it was on, because Cas had at least stopped shivering and the frightened sounds had stopped slipping from his lips.

It was later in the night that Cas had finally shifted under the blanket, blinking his eyes open only to shut them tight again almost immediately. So Dean had seized his window of opportunity while it lasted, had vaulted off his bed and rushed to the angel's side and started talking about nothing, about anything, just to give Cas something to hold on to.

He still wasn't sure if he'd moved too fast or spoke too loud or if it was something else entirely that had caused Castiel to go rigid only a few seconds later, the fear and confusion fading from his eyes – which normally would have been good, if everything else hadn't faded with it. Dean had literally watched Cas begin to shut down right in front of him and panic had pushed up his throat, had turned his words into senseless pleas. The thought of having to watch while he lost Cas _again_ after he'd finally gotten him back had made his stomach threaten to toss the eight cups of coffee he'd drank that day.

But then Dean had been granted a miracle and awareness had sparked back in his blue eyes.

The relief was short lived when it became obvious Castiel wasn't all there. He'd had to watch while Cas struggled to speak in the right language, running through a few different ones Dean hadn't recognized and, despite the language barrier, everything had been going alright – until Cas had suddenly blinked and looked up at him. Dean had to back off then, fell back onto his ass and sat down a few feet away to show he had no intention of moving anywhere too quickly. It had the desired effect, and Cas had immediately calmed and finally found the word he was looking for.

“Where?” was all he'd asked, the word stilted and heavy in his mouth. Over and over he'd asked with growing frustration every time he failed to understand the answer Dean gave him.

But, they'd figured it out eventually – just like they always did, Dean thought with a rueful smile – and Castiel had responded well to his name, seemingly regaining a vast amount of memories in a stretch of a few painful seconds. He'd cried out under the onslaught and it had taken everything Dean had not to reach out to him.

Then they'd tried to get him back into bed and everything had fallen apart.

The still raw memory of Castiel pleading for his father's forgiveness made the smell of coffee turn sour in the back of Dean's throat and he had to turn away. Seeing Cas so fucking _scared_ was like a kick to the gut and the one instinct Dean had – to hold on to the angel and never fucking let go – only made things worse; made Cas hurt _more_.

He thought about what Lucifer had told them, spitting the words out through the blood filling his mouth when he realized he was about to lose to the Winchesters _again_. His last act of defiance. Dean had played it over and over and over again, letting the Devil's words dig in like the poisonous barbs they were meant to be; because he deserved it; because Lucifer had been _right_.

“ _Did it ever occur to you, Dean,” Lucifer tried to hiss, but it came out more of a gurgle, Castiel's angel blade buried deep in his chest, “Just_ why _Castiel said yes to me? Hm? You're pretty stupid so let me explain it in a way you'll understand._ ”

Dean hadn't bothered saying he was at least smart enough to have beaten the devil a second time, because he _had_ wondered. It had plagued his every waking moment for nearly a year, the question of _why_ Cas had let Lucifer use him as a vessel; _why_ Castiel had thought that was the only answer.

“ _What happens, Dean, when one leaves a tool out in the rain and snow and wind? Hm? What happens when you use it hard and don't care for it after? It rusts and weakens and starts to crumble and then one day you go to use it and oopes! It breaks!_ ” _Lucifer cackled like a hyena, heedless of the grace and blood leaking out of him, and his smirk was twisted, full of hatred and contempt that still looked wrong on Castiel's face._

“ _Castiel was your tool and you_ broke _him. Only you could break an angel, Dean Winchester.” He gave a wet cough and blood spattered down his chin. “He loved you, you know,” Lucifer choked on a laugh as if it were the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard. “He_ loved _you, and you drove him to_ this _. You let him take my spot in the cage – you let an_ angel _rot in hell – just to clean up your mess. We're patient creatures, us angels, but,” he shook his head in a mockery of disappointment, swallowing blood, “Even we know a lost cause when we see one – even if it does sometimes take us longer to give up on it than it does on us._ ”

Dean pushed the memory away, unwilling to agonize over it _again_ , not now that he had some _good_ to focus on; not now that Castiel was awake and somewhat coherent.

He swallowed around the bile pushing up his throat, not nearly as relieved by the newest turn of events as he was trying to pretend. He'd spent the last twenty four hours trying to talk Cas down from whatever ledge he was at the edge of and he'd almost failed. Again. If he thought it was possible, Dean worried his heart might actually be breaking apart, a sliver shaking loose with each tiny, helpless little sound that had trembled from Castiel's lips.

Twice already Dean had had to run to the bathroom to retch into the toilet.

“ _This is all. Your. Fault,” Lucifer gurgled with his last few breaths, twisting the proverbial knife deeper into Dean's chest even as his grace flared one last time. “Whatever mutilated wreckage you pull out of that cage is on_ your _hands, Dean Winchester._ ”

The coffee maker gurgled to a stop, just close enough to the memory of Lucifer's blood-wet last words to make Dean's stomach heave, but he pushed it all back down, told himself to focus. He poured his own black and sugarless coffee and handed the pot off to Sam, heading back to the library with the intention of re-reading those few precious chapters on angels for the hundredth time, just in case he'd missed something.

 

* * *

 

Thanks to the heavy duty sedative, Cas had been out for twelve hours when Dean finally went back to his bedside post. They'd checked on him every hour, of course, but when Dean sat down he was still the same way the brothers had left him. Still as a corpse with the heated blanket snug around him.

Dean wiggled his fingers under where it was tight across Cas' chest, felt the heat radiating from under it, and sat down in his chair.

The blanket got hot, hotter than most people would find comfortable, but the book had said angels – the few the author had been able to observe – seemed to crowd around heat sources, especially when they were injured. It had said they would use their grace to generate heat levels that would harm a human, and cocoon themselves in their wings. Why hadn't been clear, but the author seemed to think it was a comfort thing and possibly even something to do with their grace. More heat meant more energy, the book had said, but it hadn't gone into any detail.

Dean brushed a few strands of hair off Castiel's forehead and picked up the new book he'd brought in to start reading, the dim light of the desk lamp just enough to see by without straining his eyes. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a book society and Charlie had been telling him for years that he needed to read.

A few hours passed uneventfully before Cas stirred on the bed.

Dean stopped reading, held his breath, but Cas only rolled on to his side and curled into a ball with his head tucked into the curl of his arms. In that position, it was easy for Dean to imagine where Cas' wings would fall; the arches up over his head, the feathers fluffed up for insulation and the long flight feathers reaching all the way down well past his feet.

The book had a roughly sketched illustration of an angel curled up in the same position as Cas was now, with the wings drawn lightly over the figure.

Dean reached over and tucked the blanket back in from where it had shifted, and leaned back in the chair to finish reading aloud.

 

 

 

* * *

 

When Castiel woke next, it was – thankfully – nowhere near as volatile an affair as last time. Dean had just yanked himself back from the edge of sleep for the third time with a crick in his neck and blinked down to see Castiel peering up at him from under the edge of his blanket.

Dean snapped to attention so quickly he worried he might have pulled something, but he forced himself to stay in his chair, made himself stay still and take a moment to look Cas over.

Castiel's pupils were blown wide and his gaze didn't look focused at all, staring right through Dean with drug addled detachment.

“Castiel?” he called softly. They'd decided to use his real name for now, seeing as it had jogged his memory last time, and Dean watched carefully for even the smallest flicker of awareness.

Cas' pupils contracted fractionally, but that was the only change.

He had to resist the urge to reach out; everything they'd read on the internet about trauma victims had been clear about not touching without permission. Ever. A difficult thing to remember when every fibre of his being was telling him to wrap Cas in his arms again. But, they'd seen first hand what happened when they did so, this time, Dean clenched the arm rests of his chair till his knuckles were white and kept his body still and his voice soft.

“Castiel, you with me, buddy?” he asked, the angel's full name feeling odd on his tongue.

Cas merely answered with a slow blink and then tucked his head further under the blanket, his shoulders rolling like he was trying to wrap his wings tighter around himself.

Dean's heart gave an aching beat, wondering if Cas even had wings anymore – if he didn't, was he aware of it, or was it just going to be another nasty surprise when he came around enough to realize?

With a heavy sigh, Dean pulled out his phone and sent Sam a text.

_Cas is up, doesn't seem responsive though. I think the sedative is still doing it's job._

A few seconds later, Sam answered.

_Want me to take a shift? You've been watching him for hours, you need to sleep._

Dean didn't dignify that with a response. There was no way he could sleep now that he knew Cas was up, besides he'd caught a few hours earlier.

Another hour passed – a few minutes in to which Sam showed up with his laptop, another chair and a determined look. Dean had protested at first, but eventually allowed Sam to set the computer on his dresser and load up something on Netflix for them to watch, the volume on low.

It was a welcome distraction, but they barely made it through the first twenty minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness before the sound of Cas moving under the weight of his blanket drew their attention.

He was obviously still heavily sedated, his movements sluggish, but he uncurled a little from the tight ball he was in, and latched his gaze on to Sam; didn't look away for several long minutes, at which point he simply asked

“Where?”

The words lept off Dean's tongue, eager to reassure, remembered what all the articles had said about being specific and repeating those specifics when talking someone down.

“You're still in the Men of Letters bunker, in Kansas. You're home, Cas, and safe.” He spoke softly but firmly, hoping to words stuck in Cas' muddled head. “You're _safe_ here.”

Castiel's brow crumpled like he didn't understand – or like he wouldn't allow himself to.

So Dean repeated it, would do so until Cas believed him.

“You _are_ , Cas, you're safe in the bunker with me and Sam.”

Castiel's eyes closed tightly and his shoulders hunched, curling phantom wings around himself like a barrier.

Sam leaned forward in his chair. “We promise, Castiel, you're _home_. You're _safe_.”

“We got you out of the cage three and a half months ago,” Dean continued gently. “You've been here with us since then. Try to remember, Cas.”

The angel appeared to reluctantly give it a shot, the tense line of his shoulders easing a little.

“Remember the Mark of Cain,” Sam began with evident hesitation, and Dean gave him a sharp look.

They'd agreed not to do this – this memory walk thing they'd read about online – until Cas seemed a bit more stable. The physiologist had warned about it triggering too much too fast but now that he thought about it, Dean was pretty sure they'd already crossed that bridge, given what had happened when Cas heard his name.

Of course, there was the added influence of Dean being absolutely desperate to help Cas get his mind sorted out. So, with a short nod, he let Sam continue. He'd stop it if things looked like they were starting to get out of hand.

“Remember Rowena's spell got rid of the Mark on Dean's arm,” Sam kept going, talking about things that felt as if they'd happened a lifetime ago. “Remember how she cursed you and how we found her and got her to lift it. Remember the Darkness.” Sam paused here, let the information sink in, but Cas didn't move, eyes still firmly shut, just visible above the hem of the blanket. “Remember saying yes to Lucifer.”

Sam's voice had turned grave but he didn't let it shake; though from the corner of his eye, Dean saw him wipe a hand down his face before leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs.

Sam looked tired, he realized. Just as tired has Dean felt.

He didn't mention it – they never did – and kept a close eye on Cas' face, watching for any changes.

“Lucifer beat the Darkness, Cas, and then me and Dean killed Lucifer. What you did, switching places with him, it not only took care of the Darkness but doing so weakened Lucifer to the point where we could finally kill him for good.” Sam explained slowly. “The two biggest threats to this planet are gone forever and we have you to thank for it.”

Cas suddenly drew a ragged breath, his eyes flying open. “I...I said yes to Lucifer,” he uttered with the disbelieving quality of someone who was just recalling a deeply buried memory.

They could almost see the memories washing over him. Cas went even paler in the dim light, even his lips turned white. Realization, terrible and all consuming, was creeping into every line of Castiel's face and Dean went to his knees beside the bed.

Because of _course_ , out of all that, Castiel would only hear that he'd said yes. After all, Lucifer hadn't been lying when he'd told Dean that Cas thought of himself as nothing more than a tool. He believed he was expendable, that his death wouldn't be mourned. He'd offered himself up without a second thought because he thought he was worth nothing.

“Cas, it's ok,” Dean said, as softly as he could given that his heart was pounding in his chest. “ _It's ok._ ”

But Cas' breathing was already shallow and fast and Dean barely heard when Sam muttered about going to get another syringe.

He didn't want to have to dope Cas up again so Dean said _fuck it_ to the no touching rule and slowly reached up to push his fingers into Cas' hair, pausing when the angel flinched, but then gently brushing through the soft strands as he spoke quietly.

“Cas, listen to me, ok? You gotta trust me when I say you're _out_ of the cage. You've _been_ out of the cage for months and me and Sammy, we've been watching over you. We've been keeping you safe. What you did – it saved the world, but you gotta let us save _you_ now ok, because I can't –” a sudden, messy ball of emotion clogged Dean's throat and he hastily wiped at his eyes with his free hand. “Because I can't do this without you,” he finished, voice like sandpaper. He twisted his lips in a mockery of a smile, tears slipping down his face despite his effort to stop them, and let the tips of his fingers push through Cas' hair again. “I know I have _no right_ to ask you to do anything, but I'm gonna ask anyway, Cas. _Please,_ don't give up now. _Please,_ don't let this beat you. You _deserve_ to be happy for once in your god damn life. You _deserve_ to be loved.”

Now that he'd started, he couldn't seem to stop and he reached under the blanket for Cas' hand, finding it immediately and squeezing unresponsive fingers as Castiel's face went blurry under the tears gathering in his eyes.

“And you _are_ loved, Cas – so damn much – and I'm sorry I never told you before. I'll tell you every fucking day until I die if that's what it takes for you to believe it, Cas, just _please_ -”

Cas' hand twitched in his, hesitantly squeezing back, and Dean thought his heart might shatter in his chest. He didn't allow himself to squeeze back too tightly, and instead blinked a few times until his vision cleared and he could see Cas clearly again.

Wide, blue eyes stared up at him with cautious curiosity and Dean had never wished more in his life then he did then for the ability to read minds. There was wariness in Castiel's gaze and a current of whipcord tension still had him ready to leap at a moment's notice. But he wasn't scrambling away in fear or screaming like he still thought hellfire was singeing his skin, so Dean would take what he could get.

Even if all he could get was a mangled sense of recognition in the way Castiel looked at him, like he knew Dean but didn't know how or why.

As if reading _his_ mind, Castiel suddenly spoke, his voice rough with disuse.

“I believe you, but...I don't know _why_. I _know_ you...but I don't know how. How is that possible?” Confusion occluded some of the wariness in Castiel's eyes and, with a sickening jolt, Dean wondered if Cas would have cocked his head to the side if he hadn't been laying down.

“Don't...don't worry about that right now,” he tried to encouraged despite the heaving in his stomach. “Just focus on -”

Sam chose that moment to come back in to the room, drawing Castiel's attention immediately. He tensed further, like he intended to run, his wide eyes full of fear once more.

“It's just Sam, Cas,” Dean was quick to reassure. When Castiel's hand slid from his he reluctantly let it go and sat back, his fingers tingling.

Sam quickly took in the situation and moved his left hand behind his back, hiding the syringe from view, but Castiel's eyes were already looking past him, to the door that had swung open in to the room, eyeing the chains and the sigils painted on the wood.

“Out of one cage and into another,” Castiel observed with a dull sort of resignation, very clearly speaking to himself.

Ice cascaded into Dean's stomach and he glanced over at Sam.

“No, Cas, that's – that's not –”

But Castiel turned a look on him, his gaze the most lucid it had been since waking up. Dean saw fear in his blue eyes and something close to betrayal before Cas looked away again, burrowed down under his blanket.

Dean pushed past Sam and fled, only just crashing to his knees in front of the toilet in time for his coffee to come back up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter, as promised! Thanks for all the feedback, keep it comin! Also, I haven't slept in a while so if there are any continuity errors that you notice, please let me know so I can fix them. Cheers.


	3. Chapter 3

Things were starting to realign themselves a little better now, Castiel thought, but his mind was still a jumble of hellish screams and echoes of pain and he was once again struggling to understand what Dean was trying to tell him. Though he told himself it was a small improvement to be able to tell someone was speaking at all.

He knew Dean – knew him so well that it made something hot and fierce burn through him when he looked too deep into his green eyes. But he did not know _why_ or _how_ he'd come to know him and it bothered him. He couldn't tell if this burn low in his gut was good or bad, if it was love or hatred or both, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find the memories that would answer that question. He thought he almost might be able to feel them, throbbing under all the mess, far, far out of his reach.

Maybe he had taken them all out in once piece and buried them instead of letting them go like so many other bits. It made sense, that he'd want to keep them close, given the intensity of what he felt for Dean already. Those memories must be of particular importance.

Time passed is a hazy, sluggish crawl, but he was at least aware of it passing now and as it ticked by in unmeasurable clumps of lucidity and misplaced memories, Castiel started to remember things. Usually they came in ragged chunks, rising up from nowhere and cramming themselves back inside his head without warning. Other times it seemed as if all he'd done is turn his head the wrong way and something would slide softly back into place – though not always the _correct_ place.

He remembered Lucifer, remembered saying yes. For the last while – maybe a day, he thought, or several, but no more than that – _things_ had been seeping in around that memory; things that seemed to simultaneously have nothing and everything to do with why he'd let Lucifer use him. They were hazy, not events but feelings – cold and dark and heavy. He didn't like them; tried to plug up the holes in his mind they might be coming through but they simply kept coming, filling his head like poisonous gas. So he did the next best thing and tried to ignore them all; focused on the other memories and less unpleasant feelings coming back to him.

He remembered the earth before humans and remembered bloody, savage wars and remembered heaven and the slaughter of his brothers and sisters. Remembered mountains and shifting tectonic plates and honey bees and bean burritos and run down motels. He remembered a great deal, but a lot of it was still missing, showing itself in gaping black holes in the timeline of his life. And all the parts that he did remember remained stubbornly out of order, refusing to slot into their proper places no matter how hard he willed it. Had the tower of Babel fallen last year or a thousand years ago? Had he sat in the middle of a swarm of bees in a field of poppies _before_ humans had evolved enough to make cars? After? It felt like just yesterday he'd had to politely ask Leonardo DaVinci to stop desecrating the dead in the name of science....

He got lost in these moments, getting pulled down in them like the undertow of ocean currents; couldn't help but loose his footing and his tether to the world kept slipping every time something else came back to him too quickly and too suddenly, roiling the already turbulent waters he was fighting to keep from drowning in.

It upset the brothers, when he couldn't stay focused, and when Castiel finally flickered back into the present, Dean was looking at him with emotions flashing over his face so fast Castiel could not read them. Dean was muttering, gently pushing words between them like he expected Castiel to understand – which, he told himself, was a perfectly reasonable expectation. He almost did, the words all swirling around in his head like a snowglobe right before they abruptly snapped back into place without warning.

“They're to keep you safe,” Dean was explaining.

Castiel made his eyes focus, sharpening the blurry outlines of the room, and found that he was still looking at the sigils hand painted on the door.

Right. The warding. Trapped, again.

“It's to keep things out,” Sam admitted after a glance at his brother. He pursed his lips, looked like he was bracing for something, and Castiel watched him curiously. “And to keep you in. We didn't want you to get hurt and...and wanted to be sure you couldn't hurt anyone either.”

Sam had said it all in a rush, like their intentions were a secret, like Castiel could not read those wards and know their exact purpose and intent. Still, he wondered if they'd offer something a bit more satisfactory for _why_ they pulled him out of the cage just to lock him up here. But he told himself to let the anger go; swallowed around a reflex to retch when he remembered just what they had saved him _from_. This cage was infinitely better than the last one and he had no need to see the outside of it anyway, even if the vague memory of long hallways and large rooms tugged at his budding curiosity.

“Do you remember how we met?” Dean asked so abruptly that both Sam and Cas' heads snapped around to stare at him. “We met in Hell.”

“Dean,” Sam warned, looking alarmed. This was too heavy, his expression said, it was pushing too hard too fast and too much on the still fragile angel.

“You had to pry me away from the soul I'd torn apart on the rack,” Dean pushed, his voice shaking but his gaze steady and determined.

Castiel remembered, felt it float to the surface of all the other debris in his mind; remembered Dean's twisted, demonic face snarling at him as he pried loose the knife that was stuck to his hand with layers upon layers of gore.

“I fought you the whole way out.”

Castiel remembered that too, now, what a struggle it was to fly with a twisted, rage filled soul clawing and biting at the grace purifying it.

“Then you dumped me back in that coffin and nearly blew out my eardrums trying to talk to me.”

That had been embarrassing, Castiel suddenly recalled – declaring that he'd saved the Righteous Man and then nearly causing his head to explode.

“Me and Bobby summoned you after that, remember? I stabbed you with the demon blade.”

Castiel's lips twitched, the noise in his head receding. What an odd creature he'd thought Dean to be, trying to kill an angel with a thin piece of silver. Castiel had almost laughed.

Something about him must have outwardly changed, because Dean looked relieved about whatever he saw on Castiel's face, his own breaking out in a brilliant smile like he'd accomplished something great by pushing back the screams in Castiel's head. He supposed Dean _had_ done something great by it, though Castiel wondered why he cared so much.

“You remember,” Dean whispered. “Tell me you remember, Cas.”

Castiel nodded hesitantly, able to feel his mind still shifting like the currents of the ocean, pulling up memories that belonged in the past and dropping them in the wrong places, confusing him. But yes, he remembered – or at least he _had_ the memories – if they would only stop moving long enough for him to catch them. The sounds and smells and pains of Hell rose and fell in the back of his mind like waves, stronger some moments and weaker in others.

“I'm sorry,” he said, knowing that he did not remember in the way Dean was asking him to. “I don't know how long I...my thoughts are hard to hold on to and I can't....think properly, I -” he closed his eyes and tried to focus, the image of pulling Dean away from the rack already mixing with his own memory of looking down at it so recently it still made him tremble. “I couldn't get all the pieces back,” he explained slowly, only now just remembered how he'd looked down and saw shredded bits of his grace still in the clutches of the monsters he'd escaped – that Sam and Dean had saved him from. “There's parts missing.”

The holes in his memory suddenly made sense.

“Can you explain what you mean by that?” Sam asked, coming to sit in the chair beside Dean's with slow and deliberate movements.

Castiel watched him cautiously, feeling both ashamed and perfectly justified in doing so.

“I cut my grace into pieces,” he told them once Sam was sitting. He pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders. He'd yet to try and attempt to move his wings again, scared that they might not be there. “I...I don't really know why, I just knew that I must, that it would increase my chances of surviving for longer. What that would accomplish, I'm not sure.”

He supposed the more pieces of him there were, the better chance there was that at least one of them might escape. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like to start from a mere fragment of himself if starting with as many as he had now still left his mind in ruins.

But he couldn't hold on to the thought for long, before it too faded away.

They kept talking to him, kept asking him questions even though words had lost meaning again for the moment. He wished they would leave him alone for a while, he no sooner had managed to pull himself together long enough to respond to them then they were asking him to do it again.

“Sorry,” he muttered into the edge of the heavy blanket, knowing the brothers likely found his checkered focus upsetting.

Dean kept talking, low and worried and a little annoying now, but Castiel started pulling everything back in _again_ – it was exhausting, he just wanted to _rest_.

The feel of a hand over his had ice shooting into his throat and he jerked away even as he told himself it was just Dean and _not_ one of Hell's parasites trying to burrow in to him. He wondered how long it would take him to unlearn the decades of visceral reactions even as he tried to smother them now. But the fear and the shaking persisted, muscles making him shiver as if cold.

Even though he'd been immobilized and in agony every second for years and years and years he'd never stopped trying to get away, had never been _able_ to stop struggling against the paralysis even though he never got away – never even came close. And _now_ , miraculously, when he told his body to move it listened and he _could_ get away. It seemed to have spurred the primitive parts of his brain into overdrive, flinching at the slightest movement or sound, quite sure, at least for a moment, that pain was imminent.

Not that he could be sure it wasn't, he reminded himself. _Don't get your hopes up_.

He opened his eyes – didn't remember closing them – and found that Sam was gone and Dean had fallen quiet.

Some amount of time must have passed then but it was impossible to tell just how much and he hated it, could vaguely recall a time when he could count every millisecond as it passed, but just couldn't remember _how_.

He searched for the words he wanted to say but they only came in the wrong languages and he sighed sharply with frustration, knowing the English ones were there, just buried under a rubble heap again. The sound of his irritation caught Dean's attention and his gaze focused.

“What is it, Cas? What do you need?”

The words jogged the memory of pieces of his own vocabulary, sifted them back to the top of the pile like a gold pan and Castiel tried to communicate, “ _Nanaeel ol_ -” he scowled, ignored Dean's concerned look and tried again. “Do you...hate me?”

The victorious feeling of using the proper language was somewhat ruined by the fact that he hadn't even realized he was going to ask that question in the first place. Now that he had, he very much felt as if Dean _should_ hate him, but, of course, wasn't sure why. It wasn't a new feeling though, he could tell as soon as he rolled it over and examined it that this was something old, something that had festered deep in the underbelly of his consciousness for a very long time.

“You should,” he said with certainty. “You _should_ hate me, why should you hate me? What did I do?”

It must have been something terrible, or several somethings. He dug through the wreckage of his mind, trying to find the answer to why he felt Dean should hate him as well as why it made Castiel feel like his stomach was planning to ooze out his mouth.

Claws digging into his face – no, _Dean's hands_ on his face – he flinched away with a snarl all the same, a flash of anger cutting through him.

“ _No_!” he barked, the lingering feel of the unexpected touch like pins and needles poking through his skin. Why did the man insist on touching him when it provoked the same embarrassingly uncontrollable reaction every time? He didn't like it, didn't _like_ the way it pulled sharply at the searing pain and cold helplessness constantly simmering in the back of his head, yanking them up like a fish on a hook.

Perhaps it was _him_ that should hate _Dean_.

“I'm sorry – _fuck_ , I'm sorry, Cas, you were zoning out on me and I couldn't – you weren't responding and I -” Dean made some kind of distressed noise that clung to the back of his throat like tar.

The blanket had slid off his shoulders when he moved and Castiel tugged it up again, just narrowly halting the urge to try and flex his wings.

“I don't hate you, Cas, I could _never_ hate you,” Dean continue once he'd dislodged whatever was blocking his words. “You didn't do _anything_ wrong. You saved the fucking world, man. I think you're just...reading your signals wrong right now. There's...there _is_ some stuff we need to talk about when you're not - when you're rested up a bit more. But don't worry about that right now, Cas, because that's secondary here. Just _rest_ and _heal_ and everything else can wait.”

“I'm fine,” Castiel grumbled. All things considered, he supposed he could be much worse.

“You're _not_ fine, Cas. You're shaking right now,” Dean's voice was gentle again. “ Did you know that?”

Castiel chose not to answer, even though the trembling in his muscles suddenly became apparent. They seemed to have a mind of their own, shaking with how tensely they were all coiled. He couldn't loosen them even when he tried.

“It's ok, Cas, just – Christ, let us _take care of you_ for a change.”

That implied it was usually the other way around but Castiel was done trying to remember things and maintain order in his mind for now. He was tired – exhausted, if he was being honest with himself – so without bothering to let Dean know first, he let it all go and let himself drift again.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks had passed since Castiel had woken up and Dean was relieved to see him making slow progress. He would occasionally lapse, would have to take a moment to try and rework his sentences into something they could understand, or would go blank for minutes – and on bad days, hours – at a time before drifting back down from wherever he'd gotten stuck.

It was both eerily similar to the last time the angel had been a little out of his mind and completely different.

Last time, Cas had seemed somewhat happy chasing bees or smelling flowers or however the hell he'd spent his time when he was crazy. But now there was a haunted, hollow look in his eyes and whenever he drifted again Dean knew he wasn't anywhere good.

He would sleep, his body and grace weakened to the point where he needed to, but couldn't go two hours before he was screaming, Hell still waiting for him behind his closed eyes. Whenever either of them got too close, he would flinch and look at them with such raw fear in his eyes that they had both taken to keeping a few feet away at all times, unless he was asleep or...unresponsive.

Dean wasn't sure where they should be going from there and the need to do _something_ to help was overpowering. He could wrap Cas in heated blankets and use words to try and get him to understand how much he was loved and wanted, but Dean had realized too late that there were wounds inside Castiel that he could not reach. Wounds _he'd_ inflicted. He tried to tell himself he'd done so unknowingly but he was starting to get the hang of this honesty thing and knew deep down that he'd always been conscious of his treatment of Cas.

He remembered, years and years ago when he'd suddenly realized one day – after his own gaze had lingered a little too long on big, blue, curious eyes – that Castiel had managed to slip past his defences, and what was worse, he seemed to be totally unaware of it.

He'd started keeping the angel at arms length after that, terrified with how hard his heart would beat when he got too close. Scared of how _badly_ he wanted to lean just a little bit closer. But he'd already had a major weak spot in Sam, he couldn't afford another.

After a while, it had become second nature, keeping Cas at what he'd decided was a safe distance. But even then, he'd used any viable excuse to call him down. Of course, the only viable excuse in Dean's mind was when they needed help with something they might not be able to handle on their own. He'd shamelessly soaked up Castiel's presence and attention from afar, giving nothing back in return and not bothering to stop and think if his selfish actions had any affect on the angel.

He hadn't even contemplated if an angel _could_ feel anything, much less anything for a twisted, stained soul like his.

As the years kept passing and Castiel kept leaving just like Dean was wordlessly telling him to, and then coming back like Dean longed for, Dean withdrew even more without really knowing why. Now he wondered if it wasn't just the sheer magnitude of what that meant, to have an angel choose you over and over and over again.

Sadly, hatefully, pathetically, it had taken the devil himself to finally put all the pieces together for him.

He took a sip of the coffee in his hand, wincing when he realized it had long since gone cold, and then nearly dropped the cup entirely when the heart-stopping sounds of Castiel's screams reached him all the way in the library.

Taking off down the hallway, he dimly registered the sound of his coffee mug toppling over the edge of the table and shattering on the floor. He raced through the bunker, heart pounding in his chest even though this was the third time this had happened and would probably happen again and again. It didn't help that what he was hearing was a fraction of the torment Castiel had suffered as if it were happening right that moment.

As far as Castiel was concerned, it _was_ happening right at that moment, and it was that more than anything else, that had Dean tripping over himself to put an end to it.

A throat shredding, primal sound of pure agony roared from behind the warded door just as Dean reached it and fumbled with the keys for the lock. The door shook on it's hinges and he winced, hearing Castiel's true voice pushing against the walls of his bedroom before it abruptly cut off and the sound of crashing and banging could be heard.

The lock clicked open in the ensuing silence and Dean hesitated with his hand on the knob.

“Cas?” he called through the wood. He twisted the handle slowly, and eased the door open a crack. “Cas, I'm coming in.”

It helped, they'd found, if they warned Cas about what they were going to do before they did it, even if it was just fixing his blanket or sitting down beside the bed. He would still flinch away or watch them warily but the tension seemed to leave him a little quicker when he knew what was going to happen. And it was going to take time for him to believe it when the brothers said they were going to do something and then that was all that happened. Dean knew there was a large part of Cas that expected a blow at any given moment; part of him that fully believed that when Dean _said_ he was going to adjust his blanket that he would instead plunge a knife between his ribs.

“Cas?”

The room was dark and Dean could just see enough from the light coming from the hall to make out the desk lamp shattered on the floor and the figure huddled in the corner next to it.

His heart sank.

“Cas, can you hear me?” he nearly whispered. _Soft noises, slow movements_ , he told his coiled muscles. This wasn't how he was used to tackling things. Gentle was not his usual strategy, but seeing Cas curled into a tiny, shaking ball soothed the ingrained urge to make himself bigger, to tower over Cas and fight off his demons, because there was nothing here for him to grab on to, nothing to kill.

There was no response to his question and he didn't need to turn on the light – they'd tried that once and it hadn't gone over well – to know that Cas wasn't truly in the room anymore.

He stopped a safe distance away and sat down cross legged on the floor with the shattered lamp between them and prepared to recite all the things the internet had told him might help bring Cas back from wherever he'd gotten lost.  Sometimes a particular tactic would work one day and then be completely unhelpful the next, so Dean and Sam had memorized them all – not that there were many, unfortunately.

“It's just me,” he started gently, still feeling weird identifying himself to the angel he'd know for nearly a decade, “It's Dean. I'm sitting in front of you in my bedroom in the Men of Letters bunker and you're right here with me. You're safe. You're home, with me, in the bunker, Castiel.”

The angel's full name still felt strange on his tongue, but all those articles him and Sam had read told them to say his name a lot, something about an anchor that Dean couldn't remember.

Cas had been still as a marble statue when he'd walked in and nothing had changed yet. He was so still Dean was sure he wasn't even breathing – he didn't sometimes, when he forgot to – and his arms were wrapped so tightly around his knees that his skin had gone white. His head was resting on his knees, face turned towards the wall, but Dean couldn't see well enough to tell if his eyes were closed or open and staring. He wasn't sure which was better anyway.

Dean swallowed, took a deep breath and tried something else. “It's November third, 2016. It snowed last night, Sam was bitching 'cause I made him shovel out the doorway even though he knew it was his turn.” He bit down on his lip, letting the harsh sting distract him enough to loosen the tightness in his vocal chords. The last thing Cas needed to hear was Dean's voice shaking. “He went to the grocery store an hour ago to get some more food. Gonna make some burgers when he gets back 'cause we think you might be losing weight. I know you're sleeping while you try to heal up – well, you're trying to sleep, at least...” Dean glanced over at the heated blanket where it was half pulled onto the floor, the plug having been wrenched from the wall. “So, uh...” he roughly cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the lump forming there. “So I'm gonna make some stuff I know you like and hopefully...”

_Hopefully you can keep it down. Hopefully it doesn't taste like ash in your mouth. Hopefully it'll help somehow._

For close to an hour they stay like that while Dean repeated over and over what he'd already said before Castiel finally moved, shifting haltingly like he wanted to uncurl but his muscles wouldn't loosen enough to let him. His shaggy head of dark hair lifted off his knees and Dean held his breath, bracing himself for whatever might be staring back at him.

Sometimes, on the better days – there aren't really _good_ days yet, just better ones – it's just Cas staring back at him. Other times there's a wild, feral looking sheen in his blue eyes that makes him look like a trapped and cornered animal. Other times, on the very, very _bad_ days, there's absolutely nothing staring back at him.

He breathes a sigh of relief when Cas looks up and there is recognition there. He's twitchy and hesitant, but he's aware and that's more than enough for Dean.

“Hey, Cas,” he greets the angel, feeling the tightness in his chest ease. Every time Cas comes back to them he counts it as a victory.

Cas' eyes dart around the room, land on the glass shards on the floor and the blanket half off the bed, before they settle on Dean again.

“I...I thought...”

“Just a nightmare, Cas,” he reassured him. “It wasn't real.”

“I can't tell when...it feels so...” Cas shuddered and his eyes slid shut.

“That's ok, that's totally normal.” Dean rolled his bottom lip between his teeth, hesitated. “Is it alright if I come closer?”

Cas didn't look at him but he nodded and Dean made himself move slowly through the eager flare in his chest. Cas was making a visible effort not to shy away from him so Dean could make the effort not give him _reason_ to shy away. He could be soft and gentle and quiet if that's what Cas needed. He would be _anything_ Cas needed.

He settled with his back to the wall and left a foot of space between them. “This ok?”

Cas nodded to the scattered glass and was quiet for a moment before he dully said, “I'm sorry I'm like this. I don't know how to fix it.”

“You're not broken, Cas, you don't need fixing you just need...I just want you to be _happy_.” Dean let his head fall back against the wall, letting the truth of that statement wash over both of them, hoping Castiel could hear the sincerity in his voice. “I just want you to be fucking happy for once because no one has deserved more and gotten less than you. It's not fair.” He shook his head, tried to think of the best way to make Cas understand what he meant. “And, for the record, it doesn't matter what your happy is, you just gotta find it. Doesn't matter if it's growing flowers or collecting stamps or fly fishing or eating bad food and drowning yourself in Netflix – whatever it is, man, it doesn't matter. I just want you to feel _better_ ; try not to get hung up on what you think 'better' means to anyone but you, you understand?”

He could feel Castiel staring at the side of his face but was too much of a chicken shit to look back just yet.

Until he remembered that Cas hadn't really looked at him outside of fearful glances and distrustful scrutiny in close to a year. He reminded himself how many times he'd just wished he could look into Cas' eyes one more god damn time because he'd never allowed himself to appreciate just how ridiculously blue they were.

So he turned his head, felt the sadness that had been clawing at him for months finally back off a bit when he saw Cas, clear and lucid and soft around the edges for the first time since he'd woken up three and a half weeks ago.

It was hard to tell, just what was going on inside Cas' head and Dean could almost pretend Cas was all there when he looked at him. There was recognition is those blue eyes but there was something missing too. Some of the warmth, some of the comfortable familiarity that had been there before. Dean only knew it used to be there because now it wasn't. One of those pieces Cas said he couldn't get back, maybe.

Cas knew him, sure, but it was the way someone knows a coworker. You know their name and their face and that they exist in your world, but nothing deeper than that. Cas was missing all the pieces that Dean still had – the ones that had carved out places in his heart to squirm into and settle down.

Part of him wondered if Cas was better off not remembering them – or more importantly, _him_. All he'd done since the day he'd summoned the angle to that barn was cause him pain.

The other part of him desperately needed Castiel to remember all the ways and reasons they knew each other, because the thought of spending the rest of his life this close to the angel, but still with that unbridgeable gap between them, made Dean want to curl up and drink himself to death.

“What if I can't find what makes me happy?” Castiel asked him gravely.

Dean smiled through the cold tightness in his throat and saw one corner of Cas' mouth try to imitate him. “Don't worry, I'll help you look.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

On the morning of the thirtieth day after Castiel had woken up, Dean walked in to his bedroom with a cup of steaming coffee in each hand.

Both of which he nearly dropped when he spotted Cas, standing at the foot of the bed with inky black wings spilling out his shoulders.

Dean audibly gasped, slack jawed and frozen in place, and Cas flinched at the noise, spinning around to face him as his wings arched out and up behind him. It was a vaguely frightening sight and, far in the back of Dean's brain, something nudged at him to run away. But he couldn't, too captivated with the sight of them to even think about looking away.

They seemed to grow and expand like a breathing lung, stretching out and fanning wide, taking up so much space that they quickly filled the room. Along opposite walls, the long flight feathers – which looked like they were at least five feet long – were forced to curve against the plaster.

They weren't as dark as he'd first thought, Dean realized dazedly. The tiny feathers all along the leading edges were jet black but they turned a rich, dark color halfway down, like burnt chocolate. The farther down the wing Dean looked, the lighter the feathers became, going from dark chocolate to burnt amber and sienna shades. The tips of the longest feathers – the ones curling against the walls – were such a rich, deep color they almost glowed like low-burning coals. With every deep breath Castiel took, the wings shifted with him, light from the hallway playing across the glossy feathers. Close to Cas' bare torso Dean was sure he saw flecks of blue hidden in the small feathers – the same deep, dark shade as the angel's eyes.

Eventually, when Dean finally managed to wrangle his slack jaw and look away from the magnificent fucking _angel wings_ spread in front of him, he noticed that while he'd been gawking, things had moved into dangerous territory.

Cas' eyes were wide and frightened, his entire body was trembling and he was sinking into a crouch like a tiger getting ready to pounce. Pushing against the walls, Cas was trying to spread his wings even more in a subconscious, instinctual movement to try and make himself look bigger against what he perceived as a threat and it was obvious from the glazed, cornered look in the angel's eyes that Cas was probably floating somewhere between reality and flashbacks.

Dean quickly took it all in, figuring out the best course of action to keep things from escalating. _He feels threatened, he's scared, his wings are out – that's never happened before – maybe it was an accident. Maybe he didn't want them out. He's on the defensive, Winchester, calm him down before it turns ugly._

Dean was still standing right in the doorway so he slowly took a few steps back and set the coffee mugs down on the floor, out of the way, and then sat down right there in the middle of the hall so he could still see Cas through the open door. They'd also learned by now that Cas was way more at ease if they were sitting down, just like anyone else would be. It gave him a chance to see them move before they could do anything about it, gave him a warning – time to get away – by the time they were on their feet.

Inside the room, Cas' wings remained stiff and spread aggressively, but he no longer looked like he was thinking about ripping Dean's head from his shoulders. His blue eyes glinted in the reach of the hallway lights and he shifted like a shadow, visibly uneasy.

“Alright, buddy, I don't know what happened but remember that you're still perfectly safe, ok? I'm gonna stay out here, but can you tell me what's going on?”

It was obvious there was too much going on inside Cas' head for him to really take in all the words, but he seemed to get the gist of it. His expression softened into something a little less cagey, the instinctual fear fading away as he slowly dragged himself back to the present. His wings pulled back a little, enough that his feathers weren't touching the walls anymore and Dean couldn't help but follow the graceful, fluid movement of his wings.

Christ, they were huge, Dean thought.

“What happened, Cas?” he prodded again just as he spotted the shredded remains of Cas'shirt on the floor.

“I...” his eyes flickered, discarding Enochian words and replacing them with English ones. “I was worried they'd been...left behind.”

When Cas lost track of his languages, the first few sentences always came out with a lilt to the words, like he was consciously trying to _not_ use his native tongue. It was an Enochian accent, Dean had realized a while ago. Cas had an accent and it was the most endearing thing Dean had ever heard.

“Left behind...?” he coaxed. He was pretty sure he understood what Cas meant but didn't want to assume anything, wanted Cas to get used to speaking his mind, even if his mind didn't always make sense.

“My wings, I thought – I thought they were one of the pieces I couldn't get back,” Cas clarified. “I got too excited when I realized they hadn't been...taken, and...pulled them over.”

Dean smiled, feeling giddy and warm. The worry that Cas might not have his wings anymore had been weighing on both him and Sam for weeks. After all, Cas hadn't let the weighted blanket out of his sight since waking and spent almost every moment of every day wrapped up in it. The book had briefly touched on angel's using their wings like a comforting cocoon and Dean had seen the validity of the books observations with his own eyes. Cas was noticeably calmer and less prone to flashbacks or bouts of blank stares when he was wrapped up in the blanket. His own wings could only help.

But now, Cas still looked uncertain, his wings folding in a few inches absently before he startled, seeming to remember there was a potential threat lingering in the hallway, and snapped them back out.

It was confusing, because while there was still a noticeably glassy look in Cas' blue eyes, he was still aware enough that he knew it was Dean talking to him. With a sinking sensation in his gut, Dean wondered if that meant that Cas was scared of _him_ specifically. But he quickly discarded the idea, Cas looked more frightened now than he had in the last week and Dean had been around him almost constantly since then.

It was his wings; it had to be. They had changed something, but he didn't know what.

“That's good, right?” he asked carefully. “It's good that you still have them.”

Castiel nodded, eyes clearing and body relaxing a little more, as if he'd needed the reminder that _yes, this was a good thing._

“I'm not – I'm not used to having them visible,” Cas admitted haltingly, looking simultaneously wary of Dean's presence and guilty about it.

Dean nodded, “Is that what's making you nervous?”

Cas looked down at the floor. “I'm sorry. I know -” his tongue darted out to wet his lips and he glanced over at the bed. “I know you won't hurt me, I just...” he trailed off with a sigh.

“Hey, it's ok. I understand.” Dean _did_ understand. You could tell yourself all you wanted that there was no danger but sometimes your body refused to listen.

Part of Dean was sure that Cas was just trying to make _him_ feel better when he said things like that; he didn't think Cas was telling the truth yet when he said he knew Dean wouldn't hurt him.

After all, Dean had hurt him before.

A shy, hesitant smile suddenly pulled at Cas' full lips and hit Dean like a punch to the sternum. His wings pulled in more, folding loosely against his back as Cas slinked back up onto the bed.

“I brought you some coffee,” Dean continued, trying to impress a casual tone. He wanted Cas to know it was no big deal, having his wings out – even though it totally freaking was – because there was no way being himself could feel worse than hiding parts of himself away. This _was_ a good thing – a very good thing. “You like coffee, even if you don't remember.”

It was one of the bits that had been left behind – the memory of food and what any of it tasted like – and Dean was eager to help him re-learn. If it was one form of comfort he excelled at, it was food.

He grabbed the mugs again and held them up as evidence. “Can I come in?”

Cas made a soft noise of consent but watched closely as Dean came in to the room, blue eyes glinting sharply in the light coming through the open door.

It was moments like this that reminded Dean that Castiel wasn't anything close to human. Even when he'd first met Cas – sure he'd been calm, cool and controlled and then, over the years, he'd gotten better at acting human, had genuinely picked up some mannerisms and less formal speech patterns – but what Dean was seeing now – what he had been seeing for the last few weeks – was just Castiel. Just as he was. An angel, another species with different instincts and different thought patterns that Dean didn't really understand yet. But he was learning. Slowly, he was learning.

When he stopped beside the bed and held out the mug, Castiel's eyes flicked from his face to the mug and back again before he reached out and deftly plucked it from Dean's hand.

Dean watched his wings shift but didn't try to linger too close and instead went to the dresser and leaned against it, crossing his ankles and taking a careful sip of the still steaming coffee. On the bed, Cas made a content little noise in the back of his throat, the sound deep and rumbling as he curled his fingers around the warm mug and swallowed his first mouthful, seemingly uncaring of the high temperature. Dean shamelessly stared over the rim of his own cup, taking in details he hadn't noticed because of the enormous wings taking up all his attention.

Cas had rearranged the blankets on Dean's bed. Where before he'd just been laying on top of them with the weighted electric blanket over him, Cas had pulled the four layers of blankets back and scrapped them into a loose pile with a dip in the middle and raised edges all around. He was sitting cross legged in the middle of it, with the heated blanket pooled around him like he'd been curled up in it before the wing incident had occurred.

With something like wonder, Dean realized it was a nest.

 

* * *

 

Morning coffee quickly became a ritual, one that Dean eagerly welcomed and Castiel appeared to enjoy. The routine gave a tangible feeling of stability to their progress, one that he was sure Cas could feel too. He seemed to drift less and less since Dean had started bringing coffee to the room for them to share and he and Sam had started finding other little rituals to fit into their days. Maybe it was helping keep Cas grounded, having these little anchors of time to hang on to, maybe it was something else entirely, but it was working and that was all that mattered.

And, much their delight, the wings had stayed. Dean had stared and speculated and wondered for days about Castiel's beautiful wings; wondered why he'd never shown them before. They were huge and powerful but flexed with Cas' body with the same ease and dexterity that his arms or legs did. They were as much a part of Cas as the rest off him – more so, probably – and he actually seemed to move more naturally than he ever had with them hidden.

He'd always teased Cas about how he looked like he had a stick up his ass all the time, but now Dean was starting to think that had less to do with angels thinking and acting like robots and more to do with the fact that they constantly had a major and important part of themselves hidden away. Not quite like severing their wings completely but it had to be close and would certainly cause discomfort.

He'd tried asking Cas about them, asking why he was keeping his wings out now when he never had before, but all he got were confused head tilts and answers that didn't make much sense to him.

“Well, they can't fit in here with me,” Castiel had told him once, gesturing to his bare chest and looking at Dean like he was a moron. It was such a refreshing thing, to see that look on Cas' face again, that Dean forgot to be insulted and instead had laughed.

When he pressed that Cas had never had them visible like this before, his expression became guarded and he'd asked if he should hide them again.

Dean had nearly fallen out of his chair in his haste to reassure Cas that didn't need to do anything he didn't want to. Certainly he should not hide his beautiful wings.

Sam hypothesized that angels usually kept them hidden to blend in among humans better. After all, someone sprouting wings from their back would get a one way ticket to Area 51. But now that Castiel was still struggling to remember everything, maybe that piece that cared that human bodies shouldn't _have_ wings hadn't been found yet.

It was as good an answer as any, but Dean didn't really case; he never wanted Cas to hide his wings again because it made Dean's heart soar to know that he trusted him and Sam enough to be himself around them.

Four days later, Dean was sitting at the very end of his own bed with his morning coffee in his hands while he watched Castiel, sitting up by the headboard, the electric blanket one of many crowded around him. He didn't use it to wrap himself in anymore, but it was always plugged into the wall and he usually had it laid out in the dip of the nest of blankets and would then cocoon himself in his wings on top of it.

It was stupidly, ridiculously adorable, Dean grudgingly admitted. He didn't normally find things adorable, but less than twenty minutes ago when he walked through his bedroom door – they kept it open now – and saw Castiel curled up in his heated nest, his goddamn wings all fluffed up like Dean had seen the chickadees and sparrows in the woods outside the bunker do when it got cold, something deep in his chest turned warm and gooey and he'd froze there on the threshold, a mug of coffee in each hand, and stared for a solid two minutes while his heart beat softly in his chest.

Now, Cas was sitting up groggily with his hair and feathers equally dishevelled and his tanned skin flushed pink with sleep and heat and Dean was smiling like an idiot while he watched the angel cradle the warm mug of coffee in his hands and try to keep his eyes open. Sometimes he couldn't tell which Cas enjoyed more; the heat radiating off the mug or the actual coffee.

When Cas' eyes lingered closed and the mug tilted in his slack fingers Dean spoke up, making sure to keep his voice soft, “Cas, you're gonna spill your coffee.”

He startled a bit despite Dean's care and a few drops spilled over the side of the mug when Cas snapped back awake, his fingers tightening too quickly around the mug and eyes flashing open and darting around.

“Easy, buddy,” Dean murmured, but Cas was already relaxing again, his eyes landing on Dean and then slipping down to the mug in his hands like he didn't remember how it got there. Maybe he didn't.

Cas had finally started being able to sleep for several hours at a time without being woken up screaming from nightmares and it had done all three of them some good. Sam and Dean hadn't gotten much more sleep than Cas over the last month. They were no strangers to nightmares themselves but when Cas woke up, so did they. There was no way to sleep through an angel screaming; it thundered through the concrete walls like a low grade explosion.

It wasn't something that was easy to hear. It had a heart-stopping _wrongness_ to it, almost like blasphemy, that cut down deep into your gut and tugged like it intended to rip your intestines out through your belly button.

After that, it was usually just as impossible for them to fall back asleep as it was for Cas.

Cas brought the mug to his lips and hummed around the taste appreciatively. He didn't talk much, even less than he used to, but spent a lot of time watching and observing. His keen blue eyes, when they were sharp and focused, would watch both Sam and Dean with an intense scrutiny that was comfortingly familiar.

Dean shifted when his left foot start to fall asleep, drawing Castiel's attention immediately and he gave the angel a soft smile.

The fact that Cas was letting him sit as close as he was had been a huge step he hadn't expected that morning. His smile widened when Cas merely blinked at him, no trace of fear in his gaze, just...watchful.

But he told himself not to get overly excited. Cas might be letting him sit on the same bed, but Dean knew if he moved too fast or too suddenly Castiel would still flinch away, fear would still crowd his eyes and his beautiful wings would curl protectively around his shoulders.

They were taking small steps, but they were still steps and they were still heading in the right direction and Dean felt light with the relief of it and a glowing ball of pride lodged itself behind his ribs every time he thought of how far Castiel had come since he'd woken up over a month ago.

No matter how many times the universe tried to crush him, Cas just kept popping back up like a daisy out of the snow.

“So, anything you want to do today?” he asked, taking another sip of his coffee.

Cas' days consisted mostly of two to three hours naps and reading the oldest, dustiest books they had in the library. He'd yet to leave the room, though the door stayed open all the time now and they'd removed the chains and scraped the sigils off the wood, neither of them were going to push him.

Almost always one or both of the brothers was in the room with him. Sam's laptop pretty much had permanent residence on the dresser now and had exclusively been used for Netflix for some time. Though they had both been surprised to find out Cas held little interest in it now. They would watch Game of Thrones or The Office or any other number of things and Castiel would occasionally look up, his gaze lingering on the screen like he was making a half-hearted attempt to understand what he was looking at, before it would drop back to whatever book happened to be in his lap that day.

He read voraciously, often reading through several thick tomes in a day. He was interested only in the historical books Sam would bring him, rejecting anything else to the point where the brothers had asked why he didn't want lore or fictions or something more entertaining.

“It...they help me remember,” Castiel had told them, nervously curling the corner of one decrepit page under his fingers as he stared at them. He had curled his arm around the top of the book then, like he was worried they might take it from him.

They'd reassured him by happily bringing in piles and piles of any history books they found.

But that had been several days ago and Castiel hadn't said anything since, only answering questions with a shake or nod of his head or, failing that, saying nothing at all when the brothers tried to engage him. He still looked at them when they spoke to him, but there had been a growing sense disconnect in Cas' stare over the last few days that had a pit of worry growing heavier in the bottom of Dean's gut.

“Cas?” he prompted again.

This time, Cas blinked. “I want to keep reading,” he said simply.

Some of the tension in him eased, at least he'd gotten Cas talking. “You sure that's all you want to do? It kinda feels like your withdrawing again.” He rolled his lip between his teeth, watching Cas watch him. “Is there something...I mean, are you ok?”

Cas straightened a little, “Yes, I find the books useful in realigning my memories. Most all of the books' historical accounts are accompanied by accurate dates and vivid recounts of events and that has made it possible to organize my memories where I couldn't before,” he paused and Dean held his breath, blindsided. “The more I am able to order things in my mind the easier it is to think clearly and remain...” he trailed off, looking for the right words. “...to keep unwanted memories away. It's easier not to get lost.”

Dean waited a few seconds to make sure Cas was done talking before he released the breath he was holding all at once. Cas had just said more in the last ten seconds than he had in the last ten days and Dean was still reeling from the sudden change.

Cas spoke with more confidence than he had since before he'd taken Lucifer's spot in the cage, but it still lacked the edge and authority and warmth he used to have. It was more clinical, like he was reporting the progress of his recovery to a superior and Dean didn't care to examine just why that made his stomach squirm unpleasantly. It was like everything that had made him Cas – not Castiel – but Cas, was still missing. Dean had a split second of panic when he worried if they would ever get it back.

“Although,” Castiel suddenly said, the tone of his voice once again uncertain. “I wouldn't mind learning how to make coffee.” He blinked his big blue eyes owlishly and Dean felt his mouth go dry. “Could you teach me?”

Cas' long fingers were fluttering around his coffee mug nervously, like he was already regretting asking, and he was glancing at the open door like he expected hellspawn to be lurking in the hallway.

It was such a sudden and drastic change in demeanor that, for a moment, Dean was left gaping, trying to bridge the gap between Castiel's militant report and his nervous request to learn how to make coffee, before the reason for the change suddenly occurred to him. It was the difference between _Castiel_ reporting the progress of an order – _Just rest and heal and everything else can wait_ , Dean had told him – and _Cas_ asking for something he wanted.

Dean swallowed, feeling sick and trying not to let it show.

Cas had never asked for anything he wanted; never expressed a desire for _anything_ in the entire time Dean had known him. But it was obvious now, with most of Castiel's past influences stripped away that the want had always been there, he'd just never expressed it. Dean realized, with shame and regret coloring his cheeks, that Castiel had likely thought there was no point. After all, both he and Sam – ok, mostly him – had given him every reason to believe they wanted a soldier first and Castiel second; if at all. Why would he bother asking them for anything?

Now, with all the memories of being used and discarded by his only two friends still adrift somewhere, Castiel was finally asking for something he wanted. He looked heart-breakingly apprehensive about it, though, and seemed to already regret asking, but he'd said out loud that he wanted something and that was a good first step.

“Sure,” Dean finally managed to answer, careful but without hesitation. He wanted Cas to know it was ok to ask for things, unlike what he'd been led to believe in the past, but he also wanted to give Cas a chance to back out if he needed to. “It's pretty easy, once you know how.”

Five minutes later, Dean was leading a very skittish angel down the hallway.

He kept his distance and let Cas set the pace, something in his chest aching a little every time Castiel glanced over his shoulder as if expecting something to be lurking behind him. His wings were curled around his body protectively and he was hugging the wall as he walked, blue eyes darting this way and that, never lingering longer than was necessary to deem that particular spot free of danger before flitting to the next.

Dean was jittery with nerves himself, knowing just how fragile this moment was, even though at the same time he was brimming with quiet joy that Cas had grown to trust him enough to do this. He was trusting Dean to lead him through hallways that he barely remembered – if he remembered them at all, it was hard to tell.

But still, he worried he'd mess it up somehow, would do something that sent the angel running back to his room.

“Sam's in the library,” Dean warned, remembering with a jolt that his brother was sitting right in their path to the kitchen. It wasn't that he was worried about Cas seeing Sam because they spent hours a day together, reading like the nerds they were, but more the unexpectedness of something in their path. “Just so you know.”

“Ok,” Cas simply acknowledged, sounding distracted.

When the hall ended and opened up into the war room, Castiel froze, wide eyes lifting to the high domed ceiling, then dropped down over the door, slid around the spiral staircase, swept over the massive table, taking everything in with an unreadable expression.

“You good, Cas?” Dean asked.

“This is strange,” Cas said him absently, his gaze still sweeping the room. “This all feels familiar but...I can't quite grab the memory.” He worried his lip, like there was something huge lurking in the back of his mind that stubbornly remained cloaked in shadow.

But whatever familiarity Castiel was feeling, it was obvious it wasn't tickling anything good at the back of his memory. His wings had retracted from around his shoulders and were folded tight against his back, and his brow was furrowed like he was trying to remember something he'd rather leave forgotten.

With a sinking sensation, the library grew a dark and thorny presence, looming up beside them threateningly, and Dean abruptly realized what it might be that was lurking at the edges of Cas' mind.

He opened his mouth – to say what, he wasn't sure – but Sam chose that moment to come stomping through the open archway from the library with an offhand, “Hey,” thrown to Dean.

Until he saw Cas behind him, still pressed close to the wall, and did a double take, skidding to a stop with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. His gaze flicked between his brother and Cas and he repeated, with a little more focus and a lot more confusion.

“Hey...” Sam looked more shocked about seeing Cas out of his room than he had about seeing wings sprouting from his back.

Heart beating wildly with nervous energy, and feeling as through he was standing on the edge of a knife, Dean made a _take it easy_ gesture in Sam's general direction and kept an eye on Cas as the angel inched towards the open archway Sam had just come through. His steps were reluctant, like he was being pulled along by a rope but didn't really want to go.

Cas peered around the edge of the wall and into the library and Dean knew the exact moment he remembered.

His wings flared open in alarm, an intimidating display meant to threaten a foe that was no longer there, and he staggered back a few steps as if under the force of a violent blow.

“Cas,” Dean said cautiously, gesturing for Sam to back up a few steps while he did the same. “Cas, you're fine, whatever you're seeing right now is in the past.”

Guilt tugged at his gut all the same, as fresh and sickening as the day after the mark had been erased from his arm. He knew what Cas was reliving, knew what was making him flinch every few seconds even though he was staring blankly. Dean saw it too, every time he closed his eyes..

Cas' breathing was fast and shallow, his wings slowly spreading as he backed away from the memory of Dean hurting him. The burnt amber flight feathers fanned out, making his wings look like serrated blades, and the tips glowed like low-burning coals.

At the same time, Dean nearly retched at his own memory of Castiel's cheekbone shattering under his fist.

Sam stepped around them both so that he was within Castiel's unseeing line of sight, talking in that low, soft way that always seemed to put witnesses at ease; Dean was glad for it because his throat was so constricted now that he couldn't get any words out even if he could think of ones worth saying.

Of course he would be the cause of another setback for Cas. All he ever seemed to do was cause the angel pain.

But, miraculously, Castiel seemed to be getting his breathing under control and his eyes lifted enough to meet Sam's and held his gaze, even if it wasn't entirely focused. Sam offered the angel a small, reassuring smile and kept talking smoothly, low and soft enough that Dean only caught half of what he was saying. Nonsense, he realized, the only purpose of the words so that Cas could hear his voice.

After only a minute or two, his wings relaxed and folded loosely against his back and, with one last deep breath, Castiel squared his shoulders.

“You ok?” Sam asked, taking another step closer.

Castiel's left wing gave a twitch but he didn't step away from Sam, though he did give a shaky nod and glance over at Dean.

It had been about two hours after Lucifer's last stinging words that Dean had realized he'd never apologized to Cas for almost killing him. He'd brooded over it, stewed in his guilt for months, but hadn't actually said _I'm sorry_. Then, he'd lost the chance of ever getting to when Castiel had sacrificed himself – again – to defeat the evil that Dean had unleashed upon the world. The realization that he might _never_ get to tell Castiel that he was sorry for what he'd done had been like a kick to the stomach and Dean had heaved a meagre breakfast onto the floor right where he'd been standing.

After that, he'd vowed to whatever god might be listening that if he got Cas back again he would say the words, over and over.

“I'm sorry, Cas,” he choked.

Castiel's half-hearted smile was a weary, meek little thing. “I know.”

He looked off in the direction of the kitchen like he'd suddenly remembered where it was, then looked back at Dean, resettling his wings, the feathers ruffling, slipping and sliding against each other as they settled again.

“Perhaps, after you show me how to make coffee, we should talk about those things you mentioned before. I'm getting better, I think,” he glanced back into the library, suddenly looking annoyed. “Most recent incident aside.”

Sam huffed a laugh and Dean swallowed around the relief clogging his throat, thanking every deity he could name that Cas had given him another chance even after he remembered what he'd done. He wouldn't waste this one.

“Ok, yeah, let's -” he roughly cleared his throat, blinking away the prickling at the corner of his eyes and feeling his face burn when he noticed Sam staring at him with a dumb-ass smile on his face. “Yeah, coffee...”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not totally happy with this chapter but I don't know why. Lemme know what you think.


	5. Chapter 5

Showing Cas how to make coffee – or rather, _reteaching_ him how to make coffee – turned out to be a bit more difficult than Dean had anticipated, though not for any of the reasons he'd thought.

Castiel, as Dean had long since known, was a curious creature and as such, was constantly being distracted by things like the cutlery drawer and the humming noise coming from the refrigerator. The microwave alone had taken ten minutes to explaine.

“I don't remember any of this,” Cas told him gravely as he picked up the beater Sam had left on the counter. The chord slipped from where it was coiled around the handle and dropped, the plug striking the floor at Cas' feet and making him flinch; he held it at arms length as if worried it might bite him.

Dean took a few slow steps over to him. Cas didn't look upset that he didn't remember any of the appliances, just frustrated.

"That's ok, it wasn't that long ago me and Sam had to explain this stuff to you anyway, so...here,” he held his hand out for the mixer, waited for Cas to put it in his hand instead of grabbing it from him. “Let's just do one thing at a time, ok? We'll start with the coffee and go from there.”

Castiel watched attentively while Dean grabbed the can of coffee grounds and the filters and explained how much water to put in the back of the machine and how much coffee grounds to use for however many cups he wanted to make. Cas grabbed the tin when Dean set it down, lifting it to inhale the scent of the grounds.

His eyes slid closed, “ _Ethiopia_ ,” he mumbled.

Dean grinned. “That where coffee beans were discovered or something?”

Cas hummed, putting the can back down. “Though this coffee tastes considerably better.”

When the percolator rumbled and steam started coming out the top, Castiel inched away cautiously.

“It's ok, it's supposed to make that noise,” Dean assured him.

But Cas side-eyed the machine. “It sounds angry.”

Dean chuckled and moved to the fridge. “You want something to eat? We still have some fruit left or I could make some eggs or something...” he glanced around the fridge for something Cas might like.

To his disappointment, Cas seemed to have lost his appetite for red meat. Though, through trial and error, he and Sam had figured out that the angel liked fruit – the sweeter the better – and simple things like eggs and bread with lots of seeds in it and non-root vegetables like yellow beans and cauliflower and sweet peas.

Dean had rolled his eyes every time meat or processed food was rejected and Castiel happily munched on whatever hippie food Sam brought him.

He'd looked through the angel book again, wondering if it was some weird thing that his whole species shared or if it was just Cas. Though, the image of angels frolicking around the earth before humans started ruining it, eating pure fruits right from the trees and drinking crisp water from clear streams made a lot more sense than angels biting into cows or enjoying Doritos.

Dean hadn't lingered on it too long, he was just happy they'd found something Cas enjoyed. He took some pride in knowing he'd been the one to find the things Cas favored most; the large fruit bowl in the middle of the table was stocked with expensive organic mangoes and papaya.

Which Cas noticed for the first time when he followed Dean to the table to wait for the coffee to brew. He made a purely delighted noise and grabbed a mango out of the bowl as he sat cross legged in the chair across from Dean, his wings spread a little to either side of his body, relaxed and happy. He bit into the side of the mango, his full lips shiny with sweet juice when he pulled away.

“So, uh,” Dean stuttered, looking away from the sight of Cas' throat working as he swallowed. He heard him bite into the fruit again and quickly pressed on. “So, first of all, can I ask how you're doing with, you know, getting your memories sorted out?”

Cas had managed to explain to them eventually that he remembered more and more every day. Sometimes it was things far, far in the past and sometimes it was more recent. He told them he remembered parts of the time he'd spent with the brothers. Long rides in the impala, many nights spent researching. He said he remembered some of the bad things he'd done too. Yesterday, he remembered some of Purgatory and Dick Roman. Then he'd stared at Sam for a long time.

Yesterday had not been a good day.

But today was already better, with the exception of the incident in the library, and Dean aimed to keep it that way.

“I think there are things that I will never remember,” Castiel told him quietly, picking at his fruit. “Sometimes I can feel the memory there, just out of reach, but other times I can look at something – like that,” he pointed to the fridge, “And there's nothing there at all, not even the feeling that I once knew what it was. Of all that I have regained, none of it was one of the things I could not feel at all.”

Dean nodded, sure he understood. It sounded like if Cas was going to remember something, the thread was already there, in the back of his mind, for him to pull at. But some things were gone entirely. That was perfectly fine with him. He could re-teach Cas all the stuff he'd forgotten since meeting them and looked forward to doing so. He was just weak with relief that he and Sam happened to be two of the things Cas could remember.

“I remember many things about you and Sam now,” Cas continued, eyes still on the mango. “We have been through much together. We are friends, family. But we have hurt each other.”

Dean swallowed, feeling heavy. “Yeah, we have.” He took a deep breath, and dove into the heart of it. “I know why you said yes to Lucifer.”

“Do you?” Castiel asked meekly, digging his thumb into the soft flesh of the mango.

“Yeah, I do.” He kept his voice gentle but firm, wanting there to be no doubt in the sincerity of all that he was about to say. “And I wanted to tell you that you were wrong.”

Castiel shuddered and shrank back in his chair and Dean quickly pushed on, feeling his stomach flip.

“I mean you were wrong about – about being expendable, Cas. You are _not_ expendable; you're _not_ just some foot soldier that can die for the greater good without being noticed. _We'd_ notice, Cas. _I'd_ fucking notice. I don't know what I'd do if – I can't lose you,” he said, the very thought making his voice shake. “And I thought I had for a while there. Thought I'd never get to see you again, and I almost...It killed me, knowing I would never look in the rear-view mirror and see you sitting in the back seat again, or look over to you riding shotgun when Sam wasn't being a bitch about it,” he huffed a laugh through a watery grin, fiddling with his hands, but couldn't hold the smile, had to bite into his lip to keep it from trembling.

“I felt like I was bleeding inside when I thought about how I'd never see you do that little thing were you tilt your head like a damn puppy or see the little smile you make when you think I'm being a dumbass.” He swallowed, already knowing the tears were going to spill over his eyes faster than he could wipe them away. So he didn't bother. “I was thinking about all the stupid human shit you'd love that I never get to show you or how the three of us never went on that vacation like we said we would. I thought about how I was alive, up here and you were down there in so much pain -” he sat back, sighing harshly and pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes, feeling wetness against his calloused skin and willing his voice to at least remain stable enough to finish what he'd wanted to say for almost a year now and what he _should_ have said long before that.

“I thought about all that and knew it was all my fault that you wouldn't get to do any of it, that you were down there suffering because of the shitstorm _I_ started.”

“Dean, it was't -”

“ _Don't_ , Cas. Just – just let me say this, ok?” He paused to take another breath, heart twisting in his chest because _of course_ , even now, even after all he'd suffered because of Dean, Cas was still trying to defend him. “ I'm sorry I never...I called you a hammer once and I never – _fuck_ ,” he rubbed at his eyes, everything he wanted to say swirling around in his head, getting caught up in a riptide of messy emotions, everything clambering to get to the surface all at once. “I'm so bad at this.”

Castiel remained silent on the other side of the table, just as Dean had ordered, and it only made things worse.

“I should have told you – I should have let you know that that's not what you are to us. That we didn't just want you around because you were useful to us. I drove you to-”

“I made my own choices, Dean,” Castiel said sharply. It was defensive, but Dean still wondered _who_ he was trying to defend.

“You weren't well, Cas!” he volleyed, a touch more aggressively then he intended. But he just wanted Cas to stop making excuses for him. He wanted Cas to yell and curse him and tell him what a piece of shit he was. But when he finally looked up Castiel looked far from angry, he just looked miserable. “And I _knew_ you weren't well and I still...Sam – Sam said you showed signs of PTSD after the whole thing with Rowena and I didn't fucking listen to him because I was so caught up trying to fix _another_ mistake...”

Dean rested his elbows on the table and grabbed at his hair. This conversation was turning out to be just as much of a disaster as he knew it would. He killed Satan twice but when he tries to tell someone how much he cares about them he ends up harping like dying seal.

“Dean,” Cas nearly whispered, sounding apologetic already, “Dean, you're talking in circles and I -” he sighed, “I don't understand what you're trying to tell me.”

Dean's heart stuttered in his chest and the mess in his head suddenly became still. He looked up into Castiel's patient but confused eyes and suddenly knew just what he wanted to say. What he _needed_ to say.

He took a deep breath. “I'm trying to tell you that I don't want you going around anymore thinking I don't care about you. I'm trying to tell you,” he closed his eyes, couldn't look at whatever reaction his next words might provoke, “...that I love you. That I have for a fucking long time and that I don't expect you to do anything about it. I just...wanted you to know.”

The confession hung between them, delicate and breakable, but Dean suddenly felt like he could breathe again for the first time in years. His heart still hammered against his ribs and he still worried that he might have just ruined the best friendship he'd ever had but, he  _needed_ Cas to know how much he was wanted and how much he was cared for. He just hoped it didn't send the angel running.

When he finally managed to look up, his tears had dried in sticky, embarrassing tracks on his cheeks, but Dean couldn't be bothered by them now because this was about _not_ hiding for a change. It was about being _honest_ because god knows hiding and lying is what had brought them here in the first place.

Cas was staring at him with wide eyes, his full lips parted with shock and the half eaten mango sat innocently between them with more of a presence than a mango should have. All along the leading edges of his wings, the little feathers had fluffed up.

Castiel was visibly trying to rally his thoughts and Dean worried he might have sent him into a mental tailspin with the bomb he'd just dropped. But he gave Cas the benefit of the doubt, told himself that just because his confession was earth shattering for _him_ didn't mean it meant as much to Cas.

He itched with the need to move and work off some of the nervous energy building in his muscles, so he stood and went to the coffee maker, which had long since finished brewing.  He felt drained – and a little sick – and wasn't sure if he wanted to vomit or weep with relief at finally having said it out loud. He'd say it again and again, if that was what Cas needed to hear.

He'd just started pouring coffee into two mugs with a trembling hand and playing his doomsday scenarios when he heard the sound of the chair scraping across the floor and he spun to see Castiel stand and step slowly around the table, like he wasn't entire sure he should be doing so.

Cas watched him closely, watched him the same way Dean had been watching Cas for the last month – like he was a cornered animal – and he forced himself to relax as much as he could.

“You must know,” Castiel said quietly, coming to a stop a few feet away. “That I love you too.”

He said it with such ease – like it was as true as the sun shining outside, like Dean should already know – and Dean nodded, feeling both elation and crushing sadness at the words, quite sure Cas didn't understand what he meant.

“Mine isn't the same kind of love.” He'd come this far and he was damn well going to make sure Cas understood exactly what he meant. “It's not like how I love Sam or even how you love Sam, it's -”

Castiel stepped closer, very much in to his personal space, and Dean's words froze in his throat. He tensed, keeping himself still. This was the closest Cas had willingly gotten to either of them since waking up and Dean held his breath for whatever that meant, unwilling to scare him off if he was trying to work through something.

Cas rose up onto the balls of his bare feet and Dean realized what was about to happen with a sharp intake of breath.

The first brush of Cas' lips against his was light and shy and Dean's fingers curled against the counter top with the heart-stopping _sweetness_ of it. When Cas pushed closer Dean sighed through the blood roaring in his ears, taking every instinct screaming ' _Finally! Take, take, take!_ ' and shoving it way, way down.

He kept his hands to himself, let Cas set the pace, but couldn't resist leaning in to the kiss a bit more, his head swimming. Cas' lips were soft and full and warm under his and he gripped the edge of the counter hard when one of Cas' hands came up to settle on his chest, so light he could barely feel how it shook against the fabric.

When Cas eventually pulled away after a few long, blissful moments, Dean reluctantly let him go, darting his tongue out to chase the taste of the angel on his lips.

“In case that wasn't clear enough,” Castiel drawled, though his voice trembled finely, “I love you the same way. I only regret that you heard it from Lucifer first,” Castiel said around the edges of a smirk.

Dean bowed his head at that, a laugh bubbling up from deep in his chest, and looked back up again to see that Cas had taken a step back and was staring down at where his toes peeked out from under the ratty hem of Dean's old jeans.

“I cannot promise this will be easy,” Cas admitted gravely, “I am still...”

Dean shushed him, “It's alright, Cas, we can figure this out together. I'm here,” he breathed when Cas shyly lifted his gaze again, “I'm right here with you, angel, however you need me, and I ain't going anywhere.”

 

* * *

 

Several days later, Dean was still smiling, thinking of all the little stolen kisses he and Cas had shared since then, thinking of how just that morning, he'd finally dared to press close to Cas, had closed the distance between them until they were touching from chest to hip, and let his arm curl around the angel's waist to rest his hand at the dip in his spine.

After an initial moment of tension – in which Dean had already started to pull away, worried he'd pushed too far – Castiel relaxed against him and eager lips had slotted themselves against Dean's. Cas had moved, warm and soft and just small enough to fit perfectly against him.

He breathed deeply at the memory, warmth filling him just as it did every time he remembered how much Cas had grown to trust him again. And this time he'd earned it.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks after Dean taught Cas how to make coffee again, the three of them were in the sitting room marathoning old movies on TV. Sam and Dean had each claimed one end of the sofa and Castiel was settled on the floor, off to the side of the couch, in a pile made of every unclaimed blanket they could find in the bunker, the result being a massive snarl of blankets two feet deep in the vague shape of a nest. It looked far more comfortable than the sofa.

Cas had come leaps and bounds in his recovery. He was still skittish, still flinched at loud noises and tensed with contact, but the point was that he allowed the contact at all now.

Castiel suddenly chuckled at something happening on the television, popping a few bits of popcorn into his mouth from the bowl in his lap.

He hoped one day Cas was comfortable enough with them again to sit on the couch between them, maybe lean into Dean's side and let him wrap an arm around his shoulders. But Cas wasn't quite there yet, he still shied away from contact unless he was the one to initiate it, though he was reaching out more and more – a feather-light hand on Sam's arm to get his attention or a tug on Dean's shirt to bring him closer.

They were getting there, slowly rebuilding Team Free Will into what it used to be. The bonds, though still tentative and delicate, already felt stronger than they ever had before and he smiled, watching as Cas dropped a piece of popcorn somewhere in the folds of the three heated blankets piled around him, digging for it for a few seconds before his feathers fluffed in irritation and he gave up, returning his attention to the TV.

Dean almost felt guilty about how happy he was. After all the pain he'd cause, he hardly felt like he should have anything like what he'd ended up with. But for all the mistakes he'd made, he'd done some good too and he was trying to lead by example. He wanted Cas to be happy and he wanted to be happy _with_ Cas. He thought, after all that had happened, after all they had been through, they more than deserved it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so last chapter is up! Let me know what you thought! Sorry, I know there are probably spelling mistakes but I'm at the end of a four hour plane ride and I've read through it a billion times already. If you spot any, feel free to let me know so I can fix them.


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